Zero Off For Older Nautiques -- Litigation

[TBMsNautique]

What's wrong with PP using the paddlewheel and GPS in tandem? To me it seems like a more redundant and dominant system over straight GPS. The GPS portion of the system merely calibrates the paddlewheel in real time. What's wrong with that? Maybe I'm missing something.

I think you are spot on with this comment. I gathered during my call with PP that the tandem useage was going to remain the case for the foressable future. I just felt that the GPS might be a bit more pronounced "down the road" in certain circumstances. That's why I was told (by an engineer) to wait a couple of months to see the outcome of testing the calibration using GPS.

The bottom line to all of this discussion is that PP will continue to employ the paddle wheel -- I did not get the feeling that the GPS would make the PW obsolete. That said, I was told that future iterations in the brains of the Star Gazer system (depending on the outcome of the litigation) would be handled via software that I can get for free. In other words, once Star Gazer is released, I think the hardware purchase is complete and one need not worry about obsolescence. To me, this lowered any risk associated with a potential hardware change.

Since the Star Gazer is not officially in operation yet, I'm not certain how intuitive it is. Again, the ease of use is of paramount importance (the wife factor) because I can't drive the boat with a ski on. I trust that others will get the system installed soon (those of you lucky enough to live in the South -- I woke up to negative 1 degree this morning) and rave about how easy it is to use.

[ag4ever]

(those of you lucky enough to live in the South -- I woke up to negative 1 degree this morning) and rave about how easy it is to use.

I am in the sout (can't get much deeper than Houston TX, and we are having a terrible drizzle with a chill that is keeping us off the lakes too. This is terrible, rainy and 40's. Can't wait for summer!

[east tx skier]

Mine's officially on order (though I don't expect it to ship for another week or two). Like Ag4ever said, it's too cold to ski anyway.

[ag4ever]

Well, we were back in the 70's for a day.

Now we are back in the 40's.

Bummer.

[FixerOstuff]

Does anyone know why Correct decided to drop Perfect Pass for a product that is

1. Not as precise. Civilian GPS is not accurate enough for speed control (only the government has that precise of GPS) so Z.O. developed a mathmatical algorithm to make up for it.
2. Doesn't work in a river worth a crap. I can only speak for the Sacramento River which has an inconsistent current.
3. Scary in Jump competition but I hear they are working out the kinks.

Fact of the matter is that the Paddle Wheel is still more precise than GPS we have access to. Perfect Pass will be releasing their Star Gazer GPS system late March and it works with existing Perfect Pass systems!

So why has my favorite boat company made such a poor business decision??? Anyone???

[east tx skier]

I wondered if Andy Mapple having close ties with both companies facilitated that decision. I'm sure there's more to it than that. It's just the Promo Boats that have to have it. You can still get PP on a new Nautique.

[rbalan]

FixerOstuff,

I believe your point no.1 is not accurate. Before GPS systems got so popular, there were innacuracies in locating specific global points for U.S. defense purposes. The data point on the GPS unit could have been 10-50 feet( I can't remember the variance) different than your actual position. I'm not so sure thats still is the case, I could be wrong. Even so, distance from point to point should be dead on. So with that in mind, accuracy in speed is a non-issue from non moving point to non moving point. Somebody else could probably explain this better than me.

Your other statements seem valid, I just wanted to point this out.