self steering gear is a good move, BUT you mention not using it in 10,000 miles.

Until you have used it in a variety of situations, you can expect it to fail to steer the boat in an emergency.

I have years of successful experience with a Monitor on our old, hard to steer boat, but we took a whle to learn to use it.

However, I was unable to get a Windpilot to steer our current, easy to steer Milvina. Many other boats steer well with a windpilot, but only after some trial and error.

Windvanes are NOT plug 'n' play.