Such a partially covered paddle wheel works with horizontal or vertical axis.
Two of them with vertical axis can propel a ship and offer excellent controllability!
That means also: When the cover is moved arround the paddle wheel, the direction of thrust changes!
That results in controllability like a Voith-Schneider driven vessel, but with only 2 moving parts per drive!
These experimental ships are equipped with paddle wheel propulsion:
MORITZ 
LOTTCHEN 
VON SCHNEIDER 
AAL 
BUTT