Retard wrote on 2012-04-30 02:55
http://www.answer5.com/education_reference/homework_help/?id=b631718
I don't should the distances of the two legs be different and not equal since in one out board travels three to speedboat and the other, outboard travels 4 to speedboat. Solution says that outboard travelled three for both. I don't know who's answer is right.... Mine or the website's
Groom wrote on 2012-04-30 03:46
The speedboat stayed at Charlie for the time it takes for the Outboard to pass one buoy. Keep in mind that Able and Baker are exactly the points that the boats leave and arrive at, not lines.
Think of Baker being directly above Able by 7 miles. In terms of vertical distance only, Charlie is halfway between them, or 3.5 miles. Of course, it's some horizontal distance off to, which makes the answer close to 5 miles.
Speedboat gets to C, which is 3.5 buoys inwards. At the same time, Outboard gets 3 buoys in. Then Speedboat refuels gas, and during this, Outboard goes through 1 more buoy. Then they both arrive at the same time. So the time it takes for Speedboat to go from A to C and then C to B (if you ignore refueling) is the same as the time Outboard takes to get from A to buoy 3 and buoy 4 to buoy 7 (which is Baker). It's symmetric, so it's a right-angled triangle.