I meant to compare tiller pilots with robust below-deck integrated pilots. There is no comparison there in performance and reliability. And of course, one needs a tiller to use a tiller pilot...

I never understood why a combination of the lower gear of a windvane with the upper control by tillerpilot wasn't used more as a primary device. The tiller pilots use very little energy, this type of usage requires very little work from them, some of them have very good predictive and seastate software, and you can buy a handful of them pretty cheaply.

Seems like the best of both worlds unless you really are living on an energy edge where those couple amps/day on passage are a killer.

Mark