Throttles need to be on the right, could you imagine if somebody built a car and the gas pedal was on the left ? Sure it was for when they were race boats and the t-man was in the middle but most boats are not race boats. Do any other builders of performance boats put them on the left? Like when my kids get a new bike the first thing I do is switch the brakes, front on the right back on the left. Most all motorcycles aside from some 100 year old Euro crap has gas and front brake on the right, clutch or rear brake on the left. for your hands anyway.

Reggies thought is you have your right hand on the wheel and left hand on the throttles, and if you notice where the trim tabs are (port and stb)you can operate holding the throttles with your palm and with your finger tips adjust the tabs with your index and middle finger. and then you get the controls on the steering wheel (for another outragious price) the outdrives and you use your thumb for that. so you are constantly adjusting drives, tabs and speed for the conditons of the water

I say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Here's a novel idea, put the race driver on the left side, throttles in the middle. If throttleman participates, they use their left arm. If not, driver uses right.

That begs the question, why are boat drivers on right, car drivers on left. Sounds like the square filter, round holder issue with Apollo 13.

I rode in Marc's Maximus years ago. Was first time in a cat. He sat on right, used left hand for throttles. The whole time I thought, why not put drivers of high performacne boats on left so it is more natural with throttles.

I like Nor-tech witht he dual helm setup. Plan to get one someday and leave the wheel on left. Let my wife watch me thottle or hold my hands. But traditional seems most comfortable.

Hey, I'm not saying I agree, but it's what he's told me a few times.

The story I heard was that Reggie wanted to be able to cut the throttles if anyone got out of hand on a test drive in one of his boats. I think I read it in Powerboat mag.

Good point, and that's why I had the dual switches put into my Livorsi throttles. Each throttle lever has a pair of rocker switches that controll either the drives or the tabs, which ever way is more comfortable for you. Love it. Put the boat on plane without ever taking my left hand off the wheel. I can adjust the drives with my thumb on the port stick, and the tabs with my pinky on the stb stick. REAL easy to get used to.

I believe it was due to the prop rotation, with the driver being the weight offset. With newer counter-rotating props, probably just tradition.

For 2 people driving boat driver & throttle:cool-smiley-011:

I've had 2 Fountains and a Skater with the controls on the left and I never did get real use to it. I'm in the middle of a resto on a 76 Spectra Jet daycruiser and the wheel and throttle were on the port side. I left the f-r shifter on the side and put a hotfoot in the floor and moved the trimswitch for the jetovator to the right side of the dash. I put the key switch on the left where the trim was. It just feels better because that's what I'm used too in my Active Thunder.

Never had a problem with going to the left side...feels no different to me other than docking is easier.