When I came to refit the Haswing outboard this Spring, I found that the connector, a Chinese copy of the Anderson, had failed - the metal leaves that hold the contacts in place had disappeared. So I've replaced it with a genuine Anderson 175A connector, and added the PVC boots that are available as an optional extra. I've also filled the contact area with dielectric silicone grease. I hope that'll see me through this summer without troubles, now.

When I had the Tohatsu, in a well ahead of the rudder, I couldn't leave the helm for a second before she would start turning in tight circles. Clamping the helm allowed me to go below for a moment, but no more.

With the Haswing on a transom mount to one side of the rudder, she runs straighter, I can clamp the helm and go straight enough for long enough to make a sandwich and a drink, but no more.

For longer than that, my wind vane will hold a course when motor-sailing to windward in light airs, but not downwind. With plentiful electric power now available, the answer is a small electric tiller pilot.

Ten miles at 2.5 knots takes 4 hours - the length of a watch that we used to have stand in the olden days, at the helm, glancing at the compass every so often, before self steering of any kind was available. Boring. 
PS. When I bought Weaverbird, she came with a tiller pilot, but it had been wrongly installed and I couldn't use it - something to add to the winter job list.

David wrote:

[...] later on, there were several consecutive days with a lot of motoring through calm, cloudy weather [..]

I only needed a few minutes of motor use to get Weaverbird off the sandy bottom against the breeze, then I could lay the course out of Ravenglass under sail; and it only took about 10 minutes of half power to creep into Bass Pool, Piel, very gently as it was approaching LW,  with half power giving me 2.5 knots against the fresh breeze. So not too demanding, but it seemed to take very little out of the battery.

So, motor - good, transom bracket - not so good. The motor clamps were slipping as I applied a lot of power athwartships to get off the sand. I'll have to find a better way of securing the motor onto the bracket. The motor really does put out a lot of thrust.

I don't understand why this label is attached, as there is supposed to be high voltage protection + audio alarm. I queried this with the UK agent that I bought from. The agent and I agreed that I should set the charging voltages on the low side, initially, only raising them when it is clear that the high voltage protection isn't triggered. He also said that running the motor would reduce the voltage in any case. So far, so good: I have the solar charging permanently connected, and it hasn't given any trouble.