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[SkyRender]

 This seems like a rather gross oversight.  The ocean does not affect water wheels at all, and acts as though it's just stagnant water.  Which is, of course, about as far from how oceans work as can be.  I realize it would be an insane hassle to get ocean currents to affect a waterwheel realistically, of course, but it's just silly for them to treat water wheels like they're in a pond...

[Draco18s]

Oceans are kind of a placeholder.  The waves generated by them do little (other than destroy wagons).

<bad pun>
You wouldn't happen to be SkySealer's arch nemesis would you?
</bad pun>

[KenboCalrissian]

Realistically, a water wheel shouldn't work in an ocean at all.  Water wheels rely on a force constantly pushing the wheel in a single direction to generate a constant source of power - i.e., a water current.  This is why waterwheels are commonly used in rivers - the water current is constantly flowing in one direction.

In an ocean, there are all kinds of currents swirling and mixing and changing direction.  It's at its absolute most unreliable around the coast (where one would expect to put a water wheel) because of waves.  The current is constantly flowing back and forth very rapidly.  So what happens to your wheel?  It keeps changing direction.  With 1400's technology, it's not possible to draw energy from a source like this (you can with modern technology, but that involves electrical capacitors).

To use an analogy, think of reeling in a fishing rod - the handle on the reel is the water wheel, while the circular motion of your hand is the water current pushing the water wheel.  To successfully reel in the line, you need to keep rotating the handle in the same direction.  Should you change direction, the reel unwinds, and you lose progress.

DF mechanics function on the same principle.  Imagine a pump tied to your ocean waterwheel; which way does it spin?  The answer is it directly correlates to the direction the water wheel is spinning, so if the water wheel is over an ocean tide, your pump is going to alternate between pushing and pulling liquid.  Imagine the disastrous fun you can have with that!

In short, you've been done a favor by getting a water wheel that does nothing.  If we were being realistic about it, you'd have some serioud problems on your hands.

[Draco18s]

Tidal power is a remarkably modern concept, and rather difficult to pull off.

[smjjames]

I SWEAR I had gotten a waterwheel to work with a channel coming out of the ocean once. I did make a bend in it to break up the wave.

Just how I got it to work, I don't remember, but it did work as it was connected to a pump which worked. I think I had set up a flow somehow. That game is long gone, so I can't dig it up.

Maybe under certain conditions you can get waterwheels to work with ocean water, you just need to get it flowing somehow.

In the case I'm describing, it wasn't directly wave powered as it was channeled a good distance, more than 10 tiles from shore and I had made it so that the wave would be broken up (so the wave wouldn't cover the tunnel floor with water every 20 seconds). Although once the pump got started, the flow would be moving the right way, so maybe there was an alternating flow going on but it only takes a moment for the pump to get started and for it to flow one way.

This requires SCIENCE!!

It shouldn't be too hard to test since you can just find a nice stretch of beach that is either on an island or turn invasions off.

[Thief^]

Realistically, a water wheel shouldn't work in an ocean at all.  Water wheels rely on a force constantly pushing the wheel in a single direction to generate a constant source of power - i.e., a water current.  This is why waterwheels are commonly used in rivers - the water current is constantly flowing in one direction.

In an ocean, there are all kinds of currents swirling and mixing and changing direction.  It's at its absolute most unreliable around the coast (where one would expect to put a water wheel) because of waves.  The current is constantly flowing back and forth very rapidly.  So what happens to your wheel?  It keeps changing direction.  With 1400's technology, it's not possible to draw energy from a source like this (you can with modern technology, but that involves electrical capacitors).

What about using a ratchet? Or specifically something like a modern bicycle gear which will free-turn one way and only transmit power when turned the other way. Could you even use two and a little gearing to allow turning either way to turn the output axle in the same direction?
I'm not saying that this is DF-level tech, I'm just thinking that it may actually be possible to harness ocean power mechanically. It wouldn't be very smooth though.

[PTTG??]

If we had tides, the wise thing to do would be to have a resivoir filled by high tide that gradually drains, past the wheel, into the low tide.

[HideousBeing]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide_mill

Old style (roman age+) tidal power, so it could be reasonable to add to DF. Either way I think this works as intended.