I have a Yanmar 2GM and have noticed that the spring resistance to advancing the governor setting is quite high. In order to hold anything more than an idle power setting, some considerable friction force must be introduced in the throttle cable or quadrant or else the spring force will back the power setting down.
Perhaps other engines share this characteristic.
Some boats have a simple "cable squasher" type brake to provide this friction. On
Edson pedestal controls of the newer type, there is a friction brake built into the throttle lever mechanism apparently for this purpose.
Unfortunately, I don't have the neat
Edson solution, and I recoil at the crudeness of simply crushing a perfectly good control cable, so I will be trying Faster's more elegant fix this spring.