Final answer:
The question involves calculating the velocity of a boat relative to water, taking into account the speed of the river's current and the time taken for a round trip along the shore.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student is asking about the velocity of a boat with respect to water, given its round trip time on a river with a certain flow speed. To solve this, one needs to understand concepts from physics, particularly those related to relative motion in two dimensions. Generally, the velocity of the boat relative to the ground can be found by adding the velocity of the boat relative to the river and the velocity of the river relative to the ground vectorially.
To determine the velocity of the boat with respect to the water, which is effectively still with respect to the boat, we need to calculate the boat's speed in each direction of the round trip and then find the average of these speeds. Since the river's current is affecting the round trip time, we must consider it when calculating the effective velocity of the boat in the upstream and downstream directions. Then we can apply the formula for velocity, which is the total distance traveled divided by the time taken for the trip.