I’ve long hated proprietary 12 volt connectors. This project started six years ago when the power plug on my tiller pilot failed, falling to bits. If the pin’s contact flicked for even an instant the tiller pilot’s fix would be lost, resulting in circling, which is not safe when singlehanding and using the pilot to hoist the mainsail or set a reacher. By then the only replacements were on eBay and cost $110 to $140, exceeding the probable value of the aging pilot. The mast light connector had also failed. So in the fall of 2020 we set about testing a handful of respected connectors, torturing them in a salt spray test chamber and on the boat. The results were mixed—there were some outright failures, some were good for instruments—but nothing was standard and nothing thrilled us. One of the best connectors in the spray chamber failed in use as a result of UV damage to the sealing boot. See “Watertight Connector Test.”
