SOLUTION: a boat took 9 hours to travel 24 miles upstream and downstream. The speed of water current is 2 mph. Find the speed of the boat.

Algebra ->  Rate-of-work-word-problems -> SOLUTION: a boat took 9 hours to travel 24 miles upstream and downstream. The speed of water current is 2 mph. Find the speed of the boat.      Log On


   



Question 1111316: a boat took 9 hours to travel 24 miles upstream and downstream. The speed of water current is 2 mph. Find the speed of the boat.
Answer by ikleyn(52775) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
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Let "r" be the speed of the boat.


Then your "time" equation is


24%2F%28r-2%29 + 24%2F%28r%2B2%29 = 9.


Solve it for r.


Answer.  r = 6 miles per hour.

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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.

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.