In this paper, the possibility of designing a five-phase Surface-mounted Permanent Magnet (SPM) machine with 20 slots and 8 poles for a low power marine propulsion system is examined. Due to its particular winding and surface magnet design, the machine inherently offers an electronic pole changing effect from 3×4 pole pairs at low speed to 4 pole pairs at high speed. At high speed, in the constant power range, according to Finite Element Analysis, the Maximum Torque Per Ampere strategy appears not to be the right solution to minimize the whole machine losses (copper, iron and magnets). In particular, a strategy that favors the 4-pole rotating field at high speed allows to mitigate the magnet losses, thus limiting the risk of magnet overheating.