I have to agree. There should of been 3 circles around the character. The first circle should of been slow movement, allowing the boat to drift and go backwards. Then next one should of been a mid-speed with no drifting and the 3rd should of been for full throttle.
This might of allowed for a few different manuevers or manuevering abilities to be added.
The reason why I agree with this is because a ship should never be able to move sideways at full throttle and drifting at full throttle is also impossible. The boats should actually turn and face the direction it's moving in.
They would of had to add another graphic, so that when the boat is facing left, forward or right forward, you actually see it going in that direction rather than a full speed drift.