Sorry Mal, I'd deleted my post suggesting the starter should be rotated 180 degrees before your post appeared - obviously I wouldn't delete a post someone had replied to.
My reasons for suggesting the starter should face forward were as Mal said, plus my experience in the very early 1960s with a then brand new Waterboy outboard, generally similar to that Victa, which had the starter facing forward.
With the Waterboy at least, it was possible to turn the engine through 180 degrees - that was what it used as a reverse. However if you had a backwards facing starter and consequently started the motor in reverse every time, you would have no access to the throttle until you turned it around forward. There's no telling what the boat would have hit by then: there was no kill switch, you stopped the engine by closing the throttle.
