What Three Words

[dunedin]

I agree the OS grid is obsolete. It doesn't do anything that lat and long on the wgs84 grid doesn't do better,
But you still need maps.
Unfortunately the OS seems intent on pricing itself out of the mainstream consumer market.
But I use OS maps and OS derived maps.
Lots of people have them on thier phones.

W3W does not on its own, avoid the need to have a map.

Agreed w3W does not replace maps.
But whilst I am a collector of paper maps for interest, I never carry one. As a keen walker, I have the entire Great Britain OS Maps on Memory Map on my phone, but can’t easily deduce an OS Grid reference from it, even if I wanted to (which I don’t)
Most people rely on Google or Apple Maps these days.

 

[Caraway]

Surely we can simplify this. You're taking on water. You're calling mayday. How do you report your position?
- GPS
- approx range / bearing from something
- W3W

I would give GPS and if somewhere vaguely coastal, approx range and bearing from something.

Anyone who thinks spending time firing up a phone app to give three random words is the best use of their time in that situation is entitled to their opinion but I do not share it.

But it wasn't actually designed for maritime purposes. You seem to thinking up reasons it's crap for yachting when it doesn't matter. No-one is forcing you to use it. Emergency services in the UK think it is great.

 

[Sandy]

ps. I'm intrigued to know how it is that you don't rely on batteries for your nav?

I rely on a chart, Breton Plotter and a 2B pencil. We are b***ered if the pencil sharpener breaks!

To be honest, as pointed out in other post on the thread I prefer lat and long, or the British National Grid, but on land I tend to use the "road and pub" method of navigation, e.g. Down the A300 until you see the Dog and Ferret on your left, just after that take a right and we are just past the Globe.

While just about everything has a built in GPS chip these days (I have four GPS receivers on the boat and a sextant) I do have a handy app on my mobile that give a OS Grid Ref as a couple of years ago there was a gas leak in a pipeline that I called in and as the chap was in the West Midlands and I was in Devon the usual "road and pub" method was never going to work.

 

[Bristolfashion]

As would some house numbers!

I also had to write the emergency procedures for a remote property where no-one could even agree what the names of any of the roads were!

In the case of my folks' house, of course, they could have used W3W without trying to get agreement from a couple of 100 houses to install numbers.

 

[Caraway]

Great, I thought - an answer to all those lost couriers who can't find us, in our out-of-the way phone dead spot, with our postcode covering about a mile of road.

The first location it gave me was halfway up out neighbour's field full of cows. When I corrected it it still seemed unable to to track me around the house and garden. (I do have location services on) but gives an offset of ten or twelve squares. Better than a postcode but not that impressive. I'm now two houses away in their lake!

For fixed locations it's much easier to go on their website and click on the map tab. Locate to your address and zoom in until the squares appear. Choose a square until which gives you a decent combination of words where you are.

try this ///probe.piano.dome

 

[Mark-1]

?

W3W is 'simpler' because it only does one thing, and that's assign a unique label to a place. The other systems do a lot more, they tell you where that place is, where it's near etc etc. That's probably why it hasn't actually caught on.
.

Agree. It's a one trick pony. It's a position in word form which might sometimes/often be easier to remember and verbally communicate.

None the less, I suspect most of us would know what to do if we ever encountered three words used as a position.

 

[mjcoon]

I rely on a chart, Breton Plotter and a 2B pencil. We are b***ered if the pencil sharpener breaks!

Oh, surely you have a ship's cat?

 

[TernVI]

Of course in the Uk we've got another pretty opaque system of labelling places, courtesy of the Land Registry.

Around here, the postmen actually just go by surname, village.
After explaining at length where we live, the locals often say, 'Ah, Bakers' old place.'

 

[Deleted member 36384]

... After explaining at length where we live, the locals often say, 'Ah, Bakers' old place.'

Yes, thats why we left my previous village. Just one sheep, just one sheep.

 

[laika]

Not on all VHFs it isn't.
[...]
If a very experienced sailor who had been using that plotter all day can make that sort of mistake with no pressure....

I accept your argument that a non-sailor who uses w3w all the time when in a panic might find it easier to use a mobile phone and give w3w positions.

However an error caused by how a plotter display is set up is an argument for a button or display that always shows where you are, not an argument for a particular format for position. This confusion would equally be solved by a "What's my position?" app which brought up your lat and long (in numbers or words). Given that I don't have a plotter at the chart table, if my VHF didn't have a GPS display I'd install one so I could do log entries.

In my experience W3W is better for when you don't know the person you're communicating with

This makes the assumption that everyone knows what you're on about, has a smartphone and wants to download the app. I really would be interested to know what proportion of the population that applies to. I honestly don't know. I'll ping a few friends and find out. As previously stated, anyone I know would know lat/long, and ubiquity of comprehension is surely what makes a good format for people you don't know.

In other news...I note the what three words web site doesn't let you opt out of marketing cookies.

But it wasn't actually designed for maritime purposes. You seem to thinking up reasons it's crap for yachting when it doesn't matter.

This is a yachting forum so if we're not discussing it in the context of use while sailing then the debate should be in the lounge

 

[Mark-1]

The OS National Grid Reference is fast becoming obsolete on land.

This crept up on me, but now you mention it I think you're right. I use paper OS maps a lot (I have all of the UK on my phone, but the screen size of paper is unbeatable IMHO) and I can only remember two occasions in recent years where I have used an OS grid ref, once to find a feature located by grid ref in a book published before smartphones and once to communicate a position to a local Archeological Society guy who preferred OS Grid format .

There's always a better way to communicate a position. That makes me sad.

 

[Mark-1]

I rely on a chart, Breton Plotter and a 2B pencil.

I have a forked stick; a stone on a string and the mental map verbally passed down to me by my forefathers...

Your move.

 

[anoccasionalyachtsman]

None the less, I suspect most of us would know what to do if we heard ever encountered three words used as a position.

Prezactly. We've been using south.west.shingles and channel.light.vessel for ages, but hamble.winter.series is a bit of a modern upstart.

 

[Mark-1]

This is a yachting forum so if we're not discussing it in the context of use while sailing then the debate should be in the lounge

No, because other water users might be using W3W so we may still be receiving a position in W3W format even if we choose not to transmit in that format.

EG a kayaker/windsurfer/swimmer might be requesting help with the tools they have to hand.

Or young kids might find it easier to use W3W format from a vessel for a range of reasons.

Totally appropriate for this forum.

 

[penberth3]

This crept up on me, but now you mention it I think you're right. I use paper OS maps a lot (I have all of the UK on my phone, but the screen size of paper is unbeatable IMHO) and I can only remember two occasions in recent years where I have used an OS grid ref, once to find a feature located by grid ref in a book published before smartphones and once to communicate a position to a local Archeological Society guy who preferred OS Grid format .

There's always a better way to communicate a position. That makes me sad.

Problem is it's very difficult to plot a Lat/Long position on an OS map. So if you're using maps use NGR, easy.

 

[Mark-1]

Prezactly. We've been using south.west.shingles and channel.light.vessel for ages, but hamble.winter.series is a bit of a modern upstart.

mouth.went.shingle? I'll see you there.

///mouth.went.shingle

 

[TernVI]

This crept up on me, but now you mention it I think you're right. I use paper OS maps a lot (I have all of the UK on my phone, but the screen size of paper is unbeatable IMHO) and I can only remember two occasions in recent years where I have used an OS grid ref, once to find a feature located by grid ref in a book published before smartphones and once to communicate a position to a local Archeological Society guy who preferred OS Grid format .

There's always a better way to communicate a position. That makes me sad.

We stopped using them, because nobody much uses a GPS and the OSGB datum, errors creep in if you don't stick to native GPS and the WGS datum system. Converting to a different projection is mostly pointless. I do still have a handheld GPS which does the OS datum.

 

[TernVI]

Problem is it's very difficult to plot a Lat/Long position on an OS map. So if you're using maps use NGR, easy.

It's easy, just type it in Bing Maps.

 

[Mark-1]

Problem is it's very difficult to plot a Lat/Long position on an OS map. So if you're using maps use NGR, easy.

It's very easy to whatsapp someone a position and they can transpose it to their Paper OS map however they want. In practice they won't convert to NGR, they'll just open it up on google maps to look where it is and go direct to the spot on the paper map based on the geography. Or use bing maps with the OS overlay. Or just add a waypoint for it to Maverick.

I can imagine scenarios where all you could give/get was a grid reference but they're not typical. (eg Phone has only enough battery for one text, so you need to get a position with phone off and then send it, or phone is dead and all you have is a radio. These aren't typical situation IME.)

Maybe obsolete is overstating the case but not by much.

 

[Juan Twothree]

Prezactly. We've been using south.west.shingles and channel.light.vessel for ages......

Unfortunately it would appear that "channel light vessel" is in the Punjab.

That could confuse the CG somewhat.