After reading your put, I decided to ask a quick question of our friends Ed & Ellen Zacko (http://www.enezacko.com/ ). They are currently at anchor in Noumea, New Caledonia. They got there a few days ago.

I asked;
> Could you pop your head out of the hatch and give me a rough guess of what
> percentage of cruising boats there that have windvanes?
>
> You know, a guess like 30 % have windvanes or 75 % or ???

That is the total of what I asked!

Before I give his reply, a bit of there background;
The bought there Nor'Sea hull and deck and finished it out themselves. They have made between 4 to 8 Atlantic crossings, I can't recall the exact number. A few years ago they crossed from Seville, Spain to Panama and went through the canal ( video at; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4Y-3mT6I-E&feature=share&list=UUyGH1-xOhCotpV_zhSzQq7g ) And then out into the South Pacific.

We are sort of acting like "ground control" for them. As in the old David Bowie – Ground Control to Major Tom song.

His reply, a bit edited as he can be brutally straight forward... ;

-----bottom line is the people we have met--meet--who really sail and are serious and responsible all have vanes---the hacks --dreamers--motorers talkers and incompetents have autopilots---and---are always waiting in port for parts or replacements or spares-- Multi hulls all have auto pilots because the apparent wind charges so fast on them that wind vanes dont work well----

Most German, ALL FRENCH and UK Boats have vanes---the very large (over 50 ft) have auto pilots.

The conditions we have been sailing in since French Polynesia have been such that NO autopilot in the world could cope with it---especially these last several passages---
No trying to be funny--

Just another observation from "out there"

Greg