Question

A boat is heading towards a lighthouse, whose beacon-light is 148 feet above the water. The boat’s crew measures the angle of elevation to the beacon, 8 degrees. What is the ships horizontal distance from the lighthouse(and the shore)? Round your answer to the nearest hundredth of a foot if necessary.

Answer 1

We can use trigonometry to solve this problem. Let's call the horizontal distance from the boat to the lighthouse "x". We can use the tangent function to find x:

tangent(8 degrees) = opposite / adjacent

tangent(8 degrees) = 148 / x

To solve for x, we can rearrange the equation:

x = 148 / tangent(8 degrees)

x ≈ 1041.87 feet

So the ship's horizontal distance from the lighthouse (and the shore) is approximately 1041.87 feet or 1041.87 rounded to the nearest hundredth of a foot if necessary.

Answer 2

Your answer is 1053.07

Hope I helped!

Explanation: