Question

A boat travelled 336 km downstream with the current. The trip downstream took 12 hours.

a) Come up with an equation to describe this relationship
b) If the current is moving at 2 km/h, how fast is the boat moving from its engine?

Answer 1

When travelling downstream, the speed of the boat and the current add up.

Let the speed of the boat is b and the speed of the current is c.

Use distance formula:

• d = st, d-distance, s- speed, t- time

a)

Then we have equation:

• 12(b + c) = 336

b)

If c = 2, then the equation is:

• 12(b + 2) = 336
• b + 2 = 28
• b = 26 km/h