In Brian Whatcott writes:

On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 08:17:14 -0700, "Robert or Karen Swarts"
wrote:

Anyone care to discuss the relative reliability of
autopilots(electric/electronic) vs wind vanes for sail boats? Are wind vanes
still widely used?

BS


No personal insights...Still, autopilots fail if overheated or close
to a lightning stroke.

Wind vanes fail from wearout and from wind gusts.
Wind vanes are prized by blue water cruisers by all accounts

I believe you do not have personal insights, there are two kinds of
windvanes, the cheapos and the proper ones like Windpilot, Monitor,
Aries and they last for some 20 years or double that. They are made from
good (expensive) materials by hand. By the way, if you look at the
detailed picture of Windpilot, you will find that it has about 100 parts
all nuts and washers counted.

Some 10 years ago some of the BOAC round the world single handed sailors
had up to 20 pieces of Autohelm pilots so they could just throw them
overboard at the rate they failed.

- Lauri Tarkkonen