Question

The angle of elevation from a ship to the top of a cliff on the coastline is 4.5°. The cliff is 375 feet in height. How far is the ship from the base of the cliff? Round to the nearest tenth.

Answer 1

The given information would be illustrated with the image below as;

We would apply the tangent ratio. Let x be the distance between the base of cliff and the ship. We have;

`\begin{gathered} \tan \theta=(opposite)/(adjacent) \\ \tan 4.5^o=(375)/(x) \\ \\ \end{gathered}`

Then, we have;

`\begin{gathered} x=(375)/(\tan4.5^o) \\ x=4764.8ft \end{gathered}`

FINAL ANSWER:

`4764.8\text{feet}`