wind information and autohelm

[doug]

We are in the process of deciding how to equip what we hope becomes our new boat, a seaward 26rk. The craft will mainly be used for day sailing, weekend and week long trips, in that order. On my must have list are VHF and a combination chartplotter/fishfinder for GPS, charts and depth. We considering a autohelm that mounts to the wheel, but we really don't want to spring for the cost of a wind system simply to feed the autohelm. In the real world (not the world of sales people), how necessary is the wind data to autohelm performance?

[CharlieJ]

I had a wheel mounted AutoHelm once, with the wind system. I never once used the wind system.

I don't know about nowadays,, but I had to protect my AutoHelm from rain. The salesman in Annapolis told me to cover it with a bleach bottle or jug- this for a  piece of equipment supposedly designed to operate in a sailboat cockpit.  >:( :o >:( :o

Last thing I ever bought from AutoHelm.