How/Why is GPS speed control supposedly better? I love paddlewheel.

[KnoxMojo]

Thank you. That's the first argument that actually makes sense.

That's the reason I put the Nautic-laugic system on our Mojo. The boat would slow down and speed up with the pull of the rider. Driving doubles, it would either speed way up going one way, or bog down going the other. GPS really maintains that locked in speed. The cool thing about the NL system was it was installed via pigtails, I could revert back to paddlewheel in about a minute. Other that wakeboarding and slalom comps, can't see that GPS is any better than paddle.

[Jeepers]

Your experience with GPS is interesting. I haven’t had any issues with mine. In fact, I just have the GPS receiver/transmitter glued up under the dash. It even works inside a metal pole building,

I will say there is something about the Portland area that screws with my truck and phones navigation. They’re always glitching out down there. Maybe it the VORTEX!


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[Broke Pilot]

There is no delay in gps speed. All it needs is 3 satellites to for a speed. Flying, the gps is predictive since you have a given route. Any delay is overcome since it knows where you will be and when.
Boats, may be different, but I honestly don’t know. And I also don’t know if mine has a paddle wheel for river mode... haven’t really crawled that far under it.
As far how it controls the speed, I’m not sure if gps doing it or what. All I know is it works. We don’t get speed fluctuations even when surfing in choppy water or going over a wake. Once it hits the speed, it rarely budges.
Trayson, come down to Texas and come try it! Lol you’ll be a believer!

[trayson]

Trayson, come down to Texas and come try it! Lol you’ll be a believer!

Oh you know I'm more than happy to hit up that warm TX water! Maybe summer of 2019 I might be able to get back down.
(that said, I think my first experience with having the boat race away when losing signal under a bridge was on the Trinity!)

[gregski]

How about the historical perspective?

Get in your time machine and go back a little over 20 years before GPS was even available to consumers. The only way to calibrate your speedo with pitot tubes or a paddle wheel was to time your boat through a known distance. A slalom course provided the known distance and there were well known tables to determine speed like this http://sites.utoronto.ca/ski/water/faq/btspeedoadj.html I remember lots of dudes that knew those tables by heart and could quickly calibrate a speedo with just a stopwatch. Perfect Pass didn't exist. The best way to drive was to drive by engine speed (rpm/tach) with a mental calibration to the speedo (i.e. 3000 rpm = 30 mph) and men around the world yelled at their wives because they tried to control speed like a car and they couldn't get a smooth pull through the course. Perfect Pass was created in 1995 and it was dubbed "the marriage saver". IIRC, the first and only model was a tach based control which was basically like setting cruise control for 3000rpm. Wakeboarding is basically brand new.

Now fast-forward to about 15 years ago. GPS is available but not ubiquitous. Now you can calibrate your speedo without a course. Amazing! I remember borrowing a friend's Garmin GPS navigation device to do this and it was soooo wonderful since I didn't have access to a course. Check out this thread from 2005 https://www.mastercraft.com/teamtalk...ead.php?t=5077 They actually discuss the ethics of buying a GPS from Walmart, using it once to calibrate and then returning it. Wakeboarding is the defacto sport and drivers pick a speed based on wake shape and adjust accordingly. Consistent speed is more important than absolute speed like it was with slalom but there was still lots of room for preference: "I like to be pulled at 21mph". Perfect Pass is common but it's still a bit of a luxury option. I'm not sure when Perfect Pass released their Stargazer GPS option but it was right around this time and it was their flag-ship product and everybody rejoiced with the idea of an automagically calibrated speedo! Wakesurfing is basically brand new.

Fast-forward to about 5 years ago. GPS is now ubiquitous. We have a minimum of 3 GPS devices on our boat at any time. Calibrating a speedo to GPS is trivial. Perfect Pass or similar devices are basically standard (like A/C or power windows in a new car). Wakesurfing is now the defacto sport. Now people really don't care about the absolute speed, only wave shape. If I jumped on your boat, I wouldn't dream of requesting a speed, just "make the best wave". But at the same time, the speed control is even more critical. I can tolerate +/- 2 mph wakeboarding, but on our boat, the surf wave is more like +/- 0.5 mph and I can notice even even a few tenths. We could basically set cruise control by locking in the speed when the wave looks good without even calibrating the speedo but since I know ours is great at 10.5mph, it's nice to be referenced to an absolute speed.

Water sports have a speed and control problem going back to the beginning of water-skiing that has been elegantly solved by Perfect Pass and GPS in the last 15 years. So yeah, it's hard to let go of the idea that GPS is the best solution. Especially for the majority of us that are on lakes and don't have to consider currents or bridges. GPS works 100% of the time for us so there's no downside.

[Shoebox]

^^^ great post!

[trayson]

How about the historical perspective?

Get in your time machine and go back a little over 20 years before GPS was even available to consumers. The only way to calibrate your speedo with pitot tubes or a paddle wheel was to time your boat through a known distance. A slalom course provided the known distance and there were well known tables to determine speed like this http://sites.utoronto.ca/ski/water/faq/btspeedoadj.html I remember lots of dudes that knew those tables by heart and could quickly calibrate a speedo with just a stopwatch. Perfect Pass didn't exist. The best way to drive was to drive by engine speed (rpm/tach) with a mental calibration to the speedo (i.e. 3000 rpm = 30 mph) and men around the world yelled at their wives because they tried to control speed like a car and they couldn't get a smooth pull through the course. Perfect Pass was created in 1995 and it was dubbed "the marriage saver". IIRC, the first and only model was a tach based control which was basically like setting cruise control for 3000rpm. Wakeboarding is basically brand new.

Now fast-forward to about 15 years ago. GPS is available but not ubiquitous. Now you can calibrate your speedo without a course. Amazing! I remember borrowing a friend's Garmin GPS navigation device to do this and it was soooo wonderful since I didn't have access to a course. Check out this thread from 2005 https://www.mastercraft.com/teamtalk...ead.php?t=5077 They actually discuss the ethics of buying a GPS from Walmart, using it once to calibrate and then returning it. Wakeboarding is the defacto sport and drivers pick a speed based on wake shape and adjust accordingly. Consistent speed is more important than absolute speed like it was with slalom but there was still lots of room for preference: "I like to be pulled at 21mph". Perfect Pass is common but it's still a bit of a luxury option. I'm not sure when Perfect Pass released their Stargazer GPS option but it was right around this time and it was their flag-ship product and everybody rejoiced with the idea of an automagically calibrated speedo! Wakesurfing is basically brand new.

Fast-forward to about 5 years ago. GPS is now ubiquitous. We have a minimum of 3 GPS devices on our boat at any time. Calibrating a speedo to GPS is trivial. Perfect Pass or similar devices are basically standard (like A/C or power windows in a new car). Wakesurfing is now the defacto sport. Now people really don't care about the absolute speed, only wave shape. If I jumped on your boat, I wouldn't dream of requesting a speed, just "make the best wave". But at the same time, the speed control is even more critical. I can tolerate +/- 2 mph wakeboarding, but on our boat, the surf wave is more like +/- 0.5 mph and I can notice even even a few tenths. We could basically set cruise control by locking in the speed when the wave looks good without even calibrating the speedo but since I know ours is great at 10.5mph, it's nice to be referenced to an absolute speed.

Water sports have a speed and control problem going back to the beginning of water-skiing that has been elegantly solved by Perfect Pass and GPS in the last 15 years. So yeah, it's hard to let go of the idea that GPS is the best solution. Especially for the majority of us that are on lakes and don't have to consider currents or bridges. GPS works 100% of the time for us so there's no downside.

While I never slalom'd a course, I can appreciate the perspective. I started wakeboarding in the late 90's and yes, we determined our wakeboard speed by RPM's. In fact, I was SHOCKED that my buddy who was my roommate in the late 90's and after that upgraded to an "amazing" brand new custom built 2000 Sport Nautique actually STILL doesn't have perfect pass.

My first boat was my 92 Supra Sunsport that I got about 6 years ago. I adored the fact it had PP and it was a game changer for the wife that had never driven a boat in her life.

So while I can appreciate your comments about the benefits of PP in the first place, the one comment I find curious is:

GPS works 100% of the time for us so there's no downside.

Are there really piles of examples of where paddlewheel PP DOESN'T work consistently and reliably? I mean, the only paddlewheel disadvantage I see is calibration, right? I guess with my background not coming from the slalom world (even though I do freeride my slalom ski), the idea of the relative speed of the rider to the water is paramount. It wouldn't really matter to me if my PP display said 10.0 or 15.0 for surfing, because like you said, it's the relative speed that honestly matters. It might as well say "0.0" for my optimal surf speed and then anything would be + or - that figure.

I guess I must be a magnet for GPS speed control problems, because pretty much every one of the handful of times I've been on a GPS equipped boat there have been adjustments needed to be made or errors to deal with. Of course my sample size is small--4 different boats, every time on a river, and 2 of those boats on rivers with bridges.


I guess it boils down to that. I've never really had any problems with Paddlewheel and have had plenty of different GPS problems. I told one of my friends that I literally do "set it and forget it" for surfing with my paddlewheel PP. 10.0mph. he called BS saying that with our changing river conditions every speed control system he's used have required adjustment. But Honestly, we set it at 10.0mph and surf. MAYBE less than 10% of the time we change it to 10.3

That kind of ease of use with blind reliability just isn't available for me with GPS.

[trayson]

So far I've gotten the following:

GPS

• Easier to wire
• Requires no calibration
• does not vary in speed due to tension on wakeboard line or multiple riders

Paddlewheel

• Is not affected by current or wind
• more likely to "set it and forget it"
• relative speed is consistent and reliable

I still haven't heard anything compelling for why GPS would be better than paddlewheel (specifically for surfing). Just that people don't mind or don't experience the GPS downsides. Because all the "it just works" or "my speed stays spot on" are things I experience with my paddlewheel. My experience has been that it's just as reliable.

[gregski]

There's no moving parts with GPS. The one disadvantage to paddlewheels could be reliability. I know you haven't had trouble but it's still an exposed mechanical thing that has been known to get jammed/fail/etc. This was especially true with pitot tubes (that's why there were always 2 speedos). Essentially, your surfing day depends on a cheap plastic wheel on the bottom of the boat. It's not a problem until it is. But of course the same could be said for any component of the engine control...

From my perspective, GPS based Perfect Pass has been the only system that has truly been "set it and forget it", it has worked without a hitch and has always felt like the best solution, but the only downside was expense. I've found non-GPS stuff to be a little for fiddly, or finicky and I've seen plenty of weird behavior with non-Perfect Pass / custom factory solutions (but really no experience with the last 5 years-ish stuff coming from the builders). So I wouldn't put that bullet point for paddlewheels, or at least it's a tie in my book. (again, this is only on lakes, it's a valid point for current)

What would be ideal is a PP system that used the paddle wheel as the primary sensor, with GPS available for calibration and as the fallback control. PP could do all of this in firmware now. And while I'm dreaming, I'd really like PP to implement a hybrid speed/tach based control. Once we're surfing, it could record the engine speed. Then when we stop and start it would already know the target engine speed and could just adjust slightly as needed. Adjusting the response factors, etc and having it "hunt" a little until the speed stabilizes could be so easily eliminated.

[trayson]

If something happened to my paddlewheel while out on the water for the day, it'd be easy enough to simply pull up my preset that uses RPM mode. Boom. Day is saved. You said that a moving part is a point of failure. I say that a bunch of shiny objects in the sky trying to beam a signal to a receiver is a bigger point of failure. I mean, do you have Sat radio in your car? I do and I can't count the number of times I'll lose signal. There are sections of road where I literally have to change to another music source because my signal's cutting out every 2 seconds.

I know some of the speed controls do have river mode. Centurion doesn't. I really dislike the idea of having 2+ settings needed for any given day. Also, here's the fluctuation in our river currents:

Again, like you said, we can all tell a change in .2 to .3 of speed surfing. current will fluctuate an entire MPH over the course of the day.

Maybe it's just a West coast thing? Because even our "lakes" are typically reservoirs that are formed by Dams and even they often have currents.



Personally I'm not a huge fan of engine speed. that varries depending on even things like wind and waves... I don't know why people are so hung up on how fast a boat/rider is travelling relative to someone going over land. What matters in practice is the speed at which the rider (boat) is travelling relative to the water. because that's what's going to give you the same wave size and shape and push and feel every time.

And it was only on the new Centurion where it wouldn't allow the engine to throw down its power until it was going in the straight line out of the hole.



Maybe people are happy with GPS because they don't have the same wants/needs/demands from a speed control system that I do??

And I agree. Those air Speedo things are a freaking joke