I recently purchased a 1971 Starcraft with an 1980 70HP Mariner outboard on the back. The controller is a Mariner, but I can't say model or age. It has one large lever on the left and a smaller lever on the right. I have taken the boat out twice and I am still learning how the controller works. The left lever (the shift) conrols, forward, reverse, and seutral, and how fast in forward and reverse you go. The right lever (the throttle) seems to control the speeds attainable when the left lever in in various positions of forward (or reverse). I only recently found out that the throttle had to be straight up (vertical), while the shift was in neutral go get the motor to turn over and not die.<br /><br />So the problem I seem to be having with the controller, i'm not sure if it's because I'm still learning how it works, or if there's a problem with it. So here's the problem: Taking the boat out the second time, I was able to reach max speed I think with the motor, and it ran beautifully. But coming back, we had trouble bringing it out of idle speed (we had to slow down for a historic site), namely being able to reach max speed with the left lever all the way forward, even when the throttle was vertical (full throttle?). THe engine made a clicking noise and then seemed to go into a lower gear. <br />Once we had the left lever all the way forward, we moved the throttle all the way back. Tring to bring it forward to increase out speed, it kept stalling out. But we could restart the engine fine. We just could reach full potential of the engine.<br /><br />I'm hoping womeone can tell me how this type of controller works- ie when do you adjust th throttle, and what positions does the shift have to be in when doing so etc. I can't find any instructions anywhere for actual operation of this type of controller. If I really understood how it worked and how to operate it, I could determine whether the probem i'm having was operator error, or a problem with the controller.<br /><br />Thanks, Deb