6031-7.

1-38E AID: 4446 |

7/09/2020

Consider there is a boat which takes 2 hours to travel 20 miles down a river and 3 hours
to return upstream to its starting point.

The objective is to find rate of the current in the river.

Now one can assume the still water speed as a miles per hour and river speed as b miles
per hour.
20
 a  b   3a  3b  20
Further speed in upstream is as 3 .
20
 a  b    2a  2b  20
Further speed in downstream is as 2 .

Further equation 1 is multiplied with 2 and equation 2 is multiplied with 3 and the add
both as:

6a  6b  40
6a  6b  60
12a  100
25
a
3

Thus, still water speed is as 25/3 miles per hour.

Further river speed is computed as:

2a  2b  20
25
2   2b  20
3
10
2b 
3
5
b
3

5
=1.67 miles/h
Thus, the rate of the current in the river is as 3 .