Is Three of Wands a yes or a no?

This card leans yes. It carries forward movement, and in a straight yes/no draw most readers take it affirmatively.

The Three is the moment after committing.

The ships are out, the effort has left your hands, and now you wait with a clear view and nothing left to do but watch it come back.

The figure has his back to us, and the viewer shares his vantage rather than observing him. That composition is unusual in the deck and it is what makes the card feel prospective rather than descriptive: you are standing where he stands, looking at the same water.

Yes/no readings are the most popular use of tarot and the one it is worst suited to. A seventy-eight card deck built to describe nuance is being asked for one bit of information, and most of what it knows is discarded in the process.

A more useful version of the same draw: read Three of Wands as what shape this takes, not whether it happens. Expansion underway. Progress visible, results in transit. Foresight rewarded.

Strong for trade, travel, overseas work and anything with a long return. The distinction from the Two is that the decision has been made and the resources have gone out.

In an advice position it counsels waiting well, which is a specific skill: not interfering, not recalling the ships, and not treating the interval as evidence.

Reversed, the lean weakens or inverts. Delays in something already launched.

Or plans that overreached, or an expectation of return that was never realistic, which is the version where the disappointment was built in at the start.

Also read for frustration at a horizon that will not arrive. The card reversed is often about the waiting rather than the venture, and the venture is frequently fine.