I gave the example of catamarans, and Paul L talked about his higher performance boat.

Should all of us give up our current cruising boats now and find a double-ended, full keel, deep draft, slack bilge boat?

The article you linked to showed comparable results between the two types of AP for a full keel, deep draft, slack bilge boat (those are the words the author used to described his boat). He also stated that the comparable performance of the windvane to the electronic AP was due to the large number of windshifts during the night when he wasn't adjusting sails - the windvane kept higher speeds by reacting to the windshifts, thus maintaining sail trim, while the Simrad kept the same course during windshifts. Too bad he didn't read his Simrad manual - he would have found it had the ability to steer to wind also.

I wonder how that test would have turned out had he had a higher performance, fin keeled, flatter bilge boat? Actually, I don't wonder at all

And how does the type of autopilot on board translate to self sufficiency or plotting position on paper charts and maintaining watches? Lots of dinosaurs out there with electronic APs and I'm sure lots of tech geeks with windvanes. We certainly keep watches, although we only plot our position on paper charts every 1-3 hours - probably risk taking caused by having the wrong type of boat with the wrong gear. I'm sure we are a danger to ourselves and others.

Can you weld a broken tube on your windvane or machine a gear or wrist pin while on passage, or do you need to get to a port first? If our electronic AP has a problem beyond worn brushes or a bad solenoid or a bad control head, I have to get to port first to fix it. Fortunately, the only problem it can have that can't be fixed on board, and on passage, is a blown main computer.

We carry a spare main engine and a spare steering system. Now THAT'S self-sufficiency! But I'm not pedantic about others not having them...

Mark