Question

Refer to the sailboat in the illustration. How long in ft must a rope be to fasten the top of the mast to the bow

Answer 1

We will assume here that we have a right triangle to solve the question.

We have the following triangle:

To find the diagonal, d, we can use the Pythagorean Theorem, which says that, in a right triangle, the sum of the square of the length of each side of the triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse. or:

`c^2=a^2+b^2`

In this case, we have:

• c ---> d

,

• a = 24 ft

,

• b = 7 ft

Then, we have:

`d^2=(24ft)^2+(7ft)^2=576ft^2+49ft^2`
`d^2=625ft^2`

Taking the square root to both sides of the equation, we have:

`\sqrt[]{d^2}=\sqrt[]{625ft^2}\Rightarrow d=25ft`

Therefore, the value for d is equal to 25 ft (25 feet).