SOLUTION: It took a patrol boat 5 hours to travel 60 km up a river against the current, and 3 h for the same trip with the current. Find the speed of the boat in still water and the speed of

Question 1185133: It took a patrol boat 5 hours to travel 60 km up a river against the current, and 3 h for the same trip with the current. Find the speed of the boat in still water and the speed of the current.
Found 2 solutions by greenestamps, ikleyn:
Answer by greenestamps(13200)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!

Upstream speed: 60/5 = 12km/h
Downstream speed: 60/3 = 20km/h

To solve using formal algebra....

b = boat speed
c = current speed
b+c=20
b-c=12

Solve the system of equations using very basic algebra....

For a less formal solution, you can reason this way:
The 20km/h is the current speed ADDED TO the boat speed; the 12km/h is the current speed SUBTRACTED FROM the boat speed.
That means the boat speed is halfway between 12km/h and 20km/h, which is 16km/h.
And then the current speed is the difference between 16km/h and either 12km/h or 20km/h, which is 4km/h.

ANSWERS:
Boat speed 16km/h
Current speed 4km/h

Answer by ikleyn(52781)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.

It took a patrol boat 5 hours to travel 60 km up a river against the current, and 3 h
for the returning trip with the current.
Find the speed of the boat in still water and the speed of the current.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is HOW it SHOULD BE worded.

///////////////

It is a typical and standard Upstream and Downstream round trip word problem.

You can find many similar fully solved problems on upstream and downstream round trips with detailed solutions in lessons
    - Wind and Current problems
    - More problems on upstream and downstream round trips
    - Wind and Current problems solvable by quadratic equations
    - Unpowered raft floating downstream along a river
    - Selected problems from the archive on the boat floating Upstream and Downstream
in this site, where you will find other similar solved problems with detailed explanations.

Read them attentively and learn how to solve this type of problems once and for all.

Also, you have this free of charge online textbook in ALGEBRA-I in this site
    - ALGEBRA-I - YOUR ONLINE TEXTBOOK.

The referred lessons are the part of this textbook under the section "Word problems", the topic "Travel and Distance problems".

Save the link to this online textbook together with its description

Free of charge online textbook in ALGEBRA-I
https://www.algebra.com/algebra/homework/quadratic/lessons/ALGEBRA-I-YOUR-ONLINE-TEXTBOOK.lesson

to your archive and use it when it is needed.

RELATED QUESTIONS
It took a patrol boat 5 hours to travel 60 km up a river against the current, and 3 hours (answered by josgarithmetic,math_tutor2020,ikleyn,greenestamps)
it took a patrol boat 5 hours to travel 80 km up a river against the current and 4 hours... (answered by mananth)
i really dont get this one can u plz help me Thanks Solve Problems Using Linear... (answered by checkley77)
It took a patrol boat 5 hours to travel 60km up a river against the current, and 3 hours... (answered by ankor@dixie-net.com,stanbon)
Linear System A boat took 5 h to travel 60km up a river, against the current. The return (answered by ankor@dixie-net.com)
A boat took 3 hours to travel 24 km with the current. On the return trip, the boat took 5 (answered by ankor@dixie-net.com)
a motor boat toook 3 hours to make a downstream trip with a 6 km/h current the return... (answered by sophiainman,stanbon)
Alvin paddled for 5 hours with a 3-km/h current to reach a campsite. The return... (answered by Theo)
Alvin paddled for 3 hours with a 5-km/h current to reach a campsite. The return... (answered by josmiceli)