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A paddle boat is a water craft which is driven by a wheel with large, flat surfaces extending perpendicularly from the center of the wheel. When the wheel spins, the flat surfaces, or "paddles," push the boat along. Although throughout history and in the present day there were and are large, powered craft which use this principle, most often the term "paddle boat" refers to the small, human powered version found most often at resorts. The boats normally seat two people, each with access to pedals which are connected to the paddle wheel which powers the craft. A lever, centrally placed between the two seats, controls the rudder, a vertically positioned flat slab which steers the craft depending on what angle it makes with the centerline; it can increase the water resistance on one side of the boat or the other, steering the boat in that direction. A paddle boat tends to have a maximum speed depending on the design of the paddle wheel. After a certain point, pedaling faster doesn't help because the water doesn't have a chance to take the place of the displaced water and be displaced itself. It is a water parallel to spinning the wheels of an automobile. At best, don't expect more than a couple miles an hour unless you happen to be in a very strong current. (Actually, if you are doing more that a couple miles an hour, you are in serious trouble because paddle boats just aren't designed for it; you wouldn't want to go down any rapids in a paddle boat.) A paddle boat is especially useful in family outings. Younger children and teenagers can use them, giving them a sense of control which was lacking in the back seat on the way down to the resort. It also can afford a sense of privacy to older couples and parents who wish a moment of privacy from the kids -- unless of course the kids decide to follow in their own paddle boat. In this situation the older couple or parents can generally outmaneuver the kids since the kids will in all likelihood not know about the maximum speed properties of the paddle boat, and paddle like crazy while the older couple or parents pull away. However, this should only be used in cases where the need for privacy is extreme, or when the kids are trying to ram your paddle boat. Younger egos are very fragile and you don't want them growing up with memories of how they lost the big paddle boat race. Although there are theories that a similar event strong affected Adolf Hitler during his childhood, most of these theories need a great deal more work before the connection with paddle boats can be made.