Are paddlewheels still standard equipment, even on GPS-equipped boats?

[IDBoating]

It's been my experience that even GPS (such as ZeroOff) equipped boats still include the typical AirMar triducer with its paddlewheel, both as a backup (in case GPS signal isn't available) and because ZeroOff requires a second source of velocity data. What is everyone seeing on new boats these days... does every one still have an AirMar triducer?

[UNSTUCK]

I don't know about my boat having the triducer, but I know my last two GPS boats did not have a paddle wheel. Even in the deep canyons of Lake Powell I have never lost GPS speed.

[freeheel4life]

Skiers Choice runs a redundant triducer. Tige and MC just use GPS puck and a biducer for water temp/depth.

The only times Ive seen the GPS act up is one someone puts something over the puck or sits on it. Having the wrong GMT offset can cause some fun issue too.

[talltigeguy]

I thought a number of mfg still run both. Isn't that what 'river mode' is?
When on a moving body of water, the GPS signal is not accurate for what is happening in the water, so a paddle wheel is necessary. For example, surfing in 11 MPH current (it's an exaggeration, I doubt anyone surfs in that much current) would result in 0 MPH GPS speed one direction, and 22 MPH the other direction.

[freeheel4life]

Ive never really boated on anything with a measurable amount of current but after thinking about it for a minute I THINK your logic may be a bit flip flopped or my understanding of GPS is off.
GPS puck sees a bunch of geosynchronous satellites and signals are used to calculate location and speed via trilatertion(why your GPS looks for as many satellites as possible). So your GPS should be giving you real time data on your speed no matter what direction you would be moving on a river.
The paddlewheel on the other hand would give inaccurate info, and IF my head is wrapped around this correctly you would read faster going upriver. Paddlewheel will turn fast as the current would want to turn it faster. Vice versa for going down river. Think of grabbing a nozzle and a hose and spraying wheel on the trailer. You would only get readings if you spray paddle wheel from front of boat. If you were to spray the paddlewheel from the rear you will just see zero at the gauge/display(it could probably display a negative speed if it was programmed to).

This is just my thinking. Not trying to contradict you, just mulling it over in my head and thats what Im coming up with.

[UNSTUCK]

I think you're both correct, but maybe it needs to be a bit more simplified. Surfing in an 11 mph current is just an 11 mile per hour current. If you are powering the boat so the boat doesn't move up stream at all then the GPS would read 0 mph. If you're running a paddle wheel then your speed would read 11 mph. If you are moving up stream at a GPS 1 mph, your surfer will feel like he's surfing at 12 mph and your paddle wheel would show 12 mph. If you turn around and head down stream fast enough to surf at "11 mph" your paddle wheel will show 11 mph and your GPS would show 22. So going upriver your paddle wheel reads faster than GPS and going downriver it reads slower than GPS.

[IDBoating]

Yep, you're both correct. It depends upon what you want to know. Airplanes deal with this all the time, it's called "air speed" and "ground speed". There was even a recent event where a Boeing 777 was flying faster than Mach 1, something it's not certified to do. I'm not even sure the engines COULD power it that fast. But it was over Mach 1 ground speed, not air speed, because it was in a particularly fast jet stream tail wind. The air speed was still under Mach 1, but when you add the tail wind the ground speed was greater than Mach 1. The airframe didn't go faster than the speed of sound, but the passengers still arrived ahead of schedule!

Relating this back to wakeboats: In Unstuck's example of an 11 MPH current, let's say you're motoring upstream at exactly 11 MPH. You are not moving relative to the shoreline. What would you like the helm to display? 11 MPH is accurate (relative to the water), but 0 MPH is also accurate (relative to the ground). This is where GPS and paddlewheel data can be used together to yield different, yet both accurate, data.

[sandm]

when boating on the fox river with my old 22ve we used to have to adjust the cruise up and down a few 10ths depending on how we were travelling. goal was to go as far upstream as you can then turn around and go as far downstream as you can.
not sure why but surf wave was always a little better going downstream than up comparing same area to same area.

[gumby]

When on the river and surfing Last year my boat was acting really strange Like the speed was off. This explains what what I was Feeling at surf speeds. My boat has only GPS.
We would surf through faster moving pockets of water GPS would try to composite boat would sound weird wave would change. We actually stoped surfing because I thought something might be wrong with the prop. After we pulled the boat I checked the prop nothing was wrong never gave it another thought till now.
You learn something new every day.

[IDBoating]

You learn something new every day.

A friend once amended that to be "You have to be careful, or you'll learn something new every day."

[alexsmith789]

When I was trying to equip the GPS then suddenly lenovo screen flicker started and it was really disturbing a lot. Please help me to fix the problem so that I can work with it.

[freeheel4life]

^^Im not brave enough to click that link. Sure seems like spam/clickbait.

[IDBoating]

Yeah, considering his post count is... wait for it... ONE. No thanks!

[chpthril]

When I was trying to equip the GPS then suddenly http://lenovoscreenflicker.strikingly.com/]lenovo screen flicker started and it was really disturbing a lot. Please help me to fix the problem so that I can work with it.

Heres what you get when you quote the post, then remove the things that make it a hyper link.

[KoolAid]

Real quick to add to this topic. You can add a paddlewheel to the 2015+ boats. The speedo wire is still in the harness and the ECM will recognize it. Once used, it will act as a redundant speed source. At this time I am not 100% sure if it uses both at the same time to make adjustments for river flow. My guess is that it looks at GPS puck first and uses the paddle wheel only as a secondary.