Get your position right...

[biscuit]

On a recent GPS-enabled DSC (handheld or not) radio you press the red button, comment that the CG put some milk in the tea they're bringing and the cavalry comes in <1hour.

Of course, but I had no need for "the cavalry". I had an unfixably dud engine, but there was more than enough wind to sail to my destination, a busy ferry port, but I needed to arrange a tow into the marina on arrival. The CG quite reasonably needed a frequently updated ETA to avoid the local lifeboat crew hanging about the harbour entrance any longer than necessary. Hardly an "emergency", not really a Pan Pan either.

 

[oldmanofthehills]

Of course, but I had no need for "the cavalry". I had an unfixably dud engine, but there was more than enough wind to sail to my destination, a busy ferry port, but I needed to arrange a tow into the marina on arrival. The CG quite reasonably needed a frequently updated ETA to avoid the local lifeboat crew hanging about the harbour entrance any longer than necessary. Hardly an "emergency", not really a Pan Pan either.

Got similar teashirt as it were. Seriously overheating engine as heading upwind to escape oncoming worsening weather, and uncertain ability to manouver into port. Just a verbal call to CG needed and plenty of time for lat and long. They checked our progress ETA etc several times but never asked for lat and long again. Engine started and lasted long enough so no assistance eventually needed at destination

 

[Blue Sunray]

Of course, but I had no need for "the cavalry". I had an unfixably dud engine, but there was more than enough wind to sail to my destination, a busy ferry port, but I needed to arrange a tow into the marina on arrival. The CG quite reasonably needed a frequently updated ETA to avoid the local lifeboat crew hanging about the harbour entrance any longer than necessary. Hardly an "emergency", not really a Pan Pan either.

Surely not a job for a lifeboat either?

 

[oldmanofthehills]

Surely not a job for a lifeboat either?

That depends. In our situation CG said marina workboat could assist if needed. However when we got there Marina said their workboat engine was out of order and workboat was stranded on plinth rendered inaccessible by extreme high tide, so they breathed a sigh of relief when we said engine OK at low revs with jury rigged improved cooling. Had we tacked and limped into rivermouth and engine then failed, then judging from listening to other callouts the CG might well have preferred RNLI to tow us in rather than have us stuck there.

 

[dom]

That depends. In our situation CG said marina workboat could assist if needed. However when we got there Marina said their workboat engine was out of order and workboat was stranded on plinth rendered inaccessible by extreme high tide, so they breathed a sigh of relief when we said engine OK at low revs with jury rigged improved cooling. Had we tacked and limped into rivermouth and engine then failed, then judging from listening to other callouts the CG might well have preferred RNLI to tow us in rather than have us stuck there.

Good outcome. Entering Portsmouth Harbour entrance earlier this year we noticed a rather grand UK service yacht floating backwards having become beclamed in the lee of the buildings on the Western entrance!

Quick sail drop, u-turn, line slung, and said vessel was towed onto the fuel jetty, an easy drop off. A cheers from QHM to us rag community for playing on 'our side' of the harbour and that was that Turned out to be a spot of diesel bug.

Of course one needs to alert the appropriate authorities first, but after that it's well worth seeing if someone is around to sling a handy line!

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I've just found a severe limitation of W3W - it seems to be impossible to go south of about 80S, and I presume the same North!

A recent report on the BBC's website makes another point that I had failed to pick up on - the What3Words algorithm is not published, neither are their vocabularies of words. In other words, the whole thing is in the hands of a private company, and is entirely proprietary in nature. If the company running it goes bust, or their servers die or whatever, the whole system is gone. While I could (and have) devise addressing schemes comparable to What3Words, replicating the exact details is not possible, rendering the whole thing fragile and unreliable. There are other technical issues within it that I think are bad choices (for example, its 3x3 grid is on a map projection, not on the sphere, resulting in silly numbers near the poles). What3Words strikes me as a good idea that fails in its implementation - especially the aspect that its results can't be replicated outside their system.

Latitude and Longitude have no such dependencies - they were devised by the ancient Greeks, are thoroughly public domain and are a spherical coordinate system that does not fail near the poles.

 

[lw395]

I think W3W has a somewhat different business model to ancient Greek philosophers.
I'd assume their payback is generating advertising traffic in some way.
It's a bit of fun and useful to some people in some circumstances.
I quite like that, just because it doesn't meet what I want doesn't mean it's useless, but let's not promote it for things it's not intended for or very good at.

 

[mjcoon]

A recent report on the BBC's website makes another point that I had failed to pick up on - the What3Words algorithm is not published, neither are their vocabularies of words. In other words, the whole thing is in the hands of a private company, and is entirely proprietary in nature. If the company running it goes bust, or their servers die or whatever, the whole system is gone. While I could (and have) devise addressing schemes comparable to What3Words, replicating the exact details is not possible, rendering the whole thing fragile and unreliable. There are other technical issues within it that I think are bad choices (for example, its 3x3 grid is on a map projection, not on the sphere, resulting in silly numbers near the poles). What3Words strikes me as a good idea that fails in its implementation - especially the aspect that its results can't be replicated outside their system.

Latitude and Longitude have no such dependencies - they were devised by the ancient Greeks, are thoroughly public domain and are a spherical coordinate system that does not fail near the poles.

OK, how do you draw a rectangular grid on a sphere? When you have cracked that, move on to the other classic test: how to comb a hairy sphere without any partings...

You are still ignoring the assertion that the system works off-line. It should be possible to download apps without proprietary servers, I suppose. And I gather there is no advertising involved (I have no actual experience with this system beyond looking up example words for my home!) but commercial usage is charged for. This is a common business model, after all.

Whether W3W turns out to be useful enough that any effort to keep it afloat will be made if the owner runs into financial trouble we wait to find out...

Mike.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

OK, how do you draw a rectangular grid on a sphere? When you have cracked that, move on to the other classic test: how to comb a hairy sphere without any partings...

You are still ignoring the assertion that the system works off-line. It should be possible to download apps without proprietary servers, I suppose. And I gather there is no advertising involved (I have no actual experience with this system beyond looking up example words for my home!) but commercial usage is charged for. This is a common business model, after all.

Whether W3W turns out to be useful enough that any effort to keep it afloat will be made if the owner runs into financial trouble we wait to find out...

Mike.

You don't of course - you either use a map projection that is appropriate to the task (which What3Words doesn't; it appears to use Mercator which is excellent for navigation but a poor choice for most other things) or you use a tesselation that works in spherical coordinates. If I were designing something I'd start from the latter, but both are feasible. Suitable map projections would be equal area projections such as the Mollweide projection.

The algorithms used by What3Words are proprietary and protected by patents or copyright - don't know which route they've chosen.

Systems used for public safety should be a) open and b) standard. What3words is neither.

 

[lw395]

You don't of course - you either use a map projection that is appropriate to the task (which What3Words doesn't; it appears to use Mercator which is excellent for navigation but a poor choice for most other things) or you use a tesselation that works in spherical coordinates. If I were designing something I'd start from the latter, but both are feasible. Suitable map projections would be equal area projections such as the Mollweide projection.
,,,.

You should perhaps appreciate that you are in a tiny minority being concerned with latitudes above 60 or 70.
Your requirements are not part of the task which W3W has accepted.
It's a moot point anyway, because cellphone coverage is probably crap there.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

You should perhaps appreciate that you are in a tiny minority being concerned with latitudes above 60 or 70.
Your requirements are not part of the task which W3W has accepted.
It's a moot point anyway, because cellphone coverage is probably crap there.

Actually, I speak as one who has been involved in the creation of international standards for geographic information for use on a global basis, and as one who has been involved in the use of geographic systems for well over 30 years. I have advised colleagues in Mapaction on the potential for the use of a very similar system to What3Words for use in disaster relief in the third world, about 20 years ago! The proprietary and secret nature of What3Words would be sufficient to eliminate it from consideration as an international standard. And before you suggest that this is ivory tower stuff, my input (resulting from my experience of the polar regions and their special problems) ensured that a widely used standard for disseminating and displaying geographic information (GML) specified coordinates so that the problems of features that cross 180 degrees longitude could be handled seamlessly. This is a real problem - it wasn't correctly handled in some older Raymarine plotters and there's a very interesting thread on these fora about it. See http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?381670-Raymarine-Chartplotter-Error-Tough!

 

[Giblets]

The wife recently had cause to call the RAC out following a puncture on a rather busy road and asked the call taker if they wanted the W3W location. This was declined as they do not use W3W so I wonder if the company makes it's money from selling the use of the software system to commercial outfits. A fair number of the true emergency services use it but I wonder if they get the use for free.

 

[knuterikt]

You should perhaps appreciate that you are in a tiny minority being concerned with latitudes above 60 or 70.
Your requirements are not part of the task which W3W has accepted.
It's a moot point anyway, because cellphone coverage is probably crap there.

Most of Norway is north of 60N, and cellphone coverage is good in Norway.
Bergen is just north of 60N