Thought I'd include some pics about proper on-the-water open/close orientation.

Like I said before, it's all about ergonomics and efficiency.

Looking down on the base mounts, there are 12 stops that potentially allow you to point the holder at every "clock hour" position. Think of 12:00 as pointing straight back, and 3:00 as pointing straight out to the right side. I use 5 different stops in my boat, depending on how many rods are being deployed.

For rods being deployed on the port side gunnel, the 12:00 and 1:00 positions will have the mobile half of the FOLBE releasing to the left, opening toward the middle of the boat. When the rod goes down, the holder is released with a very small motion toward the middle of the boat, continuing into a high vertical hookset to maintain the load on the rod.

Here's a spread of 6 rods where the port side FOLBE's are set to 12:00, 2:00, and 4:00. The second pic is a close up of the rear FOLBE set at the 12:00 position which opens toward the middle of the boat.