but discount those whose intelligence level only allows broad bimodal categorizations.

Really? The people cruising with an AP are the "hacks --dreamers--motorers talkers and incompetents"? While all those enlightened windvane people are the ones "who really sail and are serious and responsible". And he has never met anyone otherwise?

He admits catamarans cannot use windvanes. That physical fact alone makes them hacks, etc?

And who designated the Pacific milk run as the definition of "real cruising" and "being out there"? What makes that relatively benign cruising ground the breaking and proving yard for equipment?

I know MANY boats who have circumnavigated or done significant long passages in difficult waters with an AP that have never had problems with it. How has he traveled so much for so long and not met these cruisers? He must not have met Beth Leonard and Evans Starzinger on Hawk - their website lists their Simrad AP as one of the top rated and most robust pieces of gear on their boat. They rate their Windpilot vane as "temperamental" and having numerous maintenance issues. They describe their Monitor vane on their old boat as having numerous stainless welds coming apart. But Hawk doesn't spend much time in the South Pacific - choosing Cape Horn, Iceland, etc instead - so they don't have as much experience and knowledge as Ed.

His statement that no AP could handle South Pacific conditions is enough for me to judge his knowledge of, and experience with, AP's and discount the rest of his statements.

Mark