An autopilot is a very handy thing to have on a sailboat, especially if you single hand the boat a lot. However, Otto won't keep a good watch, or have the ability to warn you when he's about to do something really stupid... so you really have to take full responsibility when using one.
A couple of summers ago, I saw what was pretty obviously an autopilot induced collision. The Direction, which is a 65' professional lobster boat that sails out of New Bedford harbor hit one of the large green lit buoys that marks the New Bedford harbor approach channel. In fact, in my previous chart, it is the second green buoy down from the top of the chart. I was watching as the Direction, with no one in the bridge, came along and NAILED the buoy well enough to knock it down and run over it. They broke their bowsprit off about half-way down... and had to lose a week of fishing time during the prime part of the season because of it. They were lucky in that Direction is a heavy steel fishing boat that could take the impact of the buoy rising up under the boat and not be seriously damaged. A second after the large "BONG" of the collision, we saw someone pop up onto the bridge and run across the bridge to the helm.
Instead of anyone being seriously injured or losing the boat, all that happened AFAIK, is that these guys went a week or so without getting paid... if they're not fishing...they're not making money. In a smaller sailboat, people could have been severely injured in such a situation.
