port side steering
 

Anyone know why the steering would be place on port side? Got an Advantage 24' Offshore with this and honestly, I've never seen another boat with this. I'm curious.

Re: port side steering
 

jet boat are set up this way. some where i heard this was because the way the boat torqued???

Re: port side steering
 

Well, thanks for the input but there also the fact that it isn't a jet boat, so I'll keep asking. By the way it's an 87 in case someone wonder.

Re: port side steering
 

My '97 Cobra Cat has port side steering.

Re: port side steering
 

My '91 Enforcer has port side steering as well.

Re: port side steering
 

Heres 1

Re: port side steering
 

Just built a 36 Spectre Cat and requested it be built that way. I like to steer with left hand and throttle with right.

Re: port side steering
 

Everyone with a stbd steering drive with their left hand and throttle with their right hand. :p
Brian41 is the complete opposite. Steer with right and throttle with left. That is strange.
Not that I don't like my setup, it's quite exotic but I was just wondering if there was a long forgotten reason behind it.
Have a nice day.

Re: port side steering
 

The reason most boats have the steering on the right is because most cars have it on the left.

This is how I have understood it; In most countries you drive on the right hand side of the road. Therefore you want the driver on the left to have a good view of the road. Since you have the weight of the driver on the left, you want the engine to spin left, as seen from hehind the car, in order for the engine torque to counteract the weight of the driver. Now, to survive as a boat engine manufacturer you must use engines from the car industry because of the large volumes. Therefore most inboard engines spin left. To counteract that torque you let the propeller in single engine boats spin right. But because of the 1.5:1 gear reduction the torque from the spinning prop is stronger than the momentum from the engine. Therefore you need to place the driver and the wheel to the right to use both the weight of the driver and the engine torque to conteract the torque of the prop

Now, in a twin engine set up (or a single with duoprop) with the props spinning in different direction and both engines spinning left, it would make more sense to put the driver on the left side. I guess the industry and us boaters are somewhat conservative........

Re: port side steering
 

Some more thoughts on this; I think the jet drive does not have a gear reduction. hence the theoretical torque from the impeller is the same but opposite of the engine. However, since the impeller is sitting in a tunnel there will be a reversed torque from the water circulating against the walls of the tunnel. Then you are back to square one and the resulting torque from the engine will point to an optimun drivers seat on the left of the boat.

Similarly, if you have an out board engine the best place to put the wheel will only depend on the rotation of the prop since the crank shaft is vertical. A rightspinning prop, wheel on the right side, leftspinning prop, wheel on the left.