9-5 Course for a Ship

-Measure from North unless told otherwise


Example 1: A hunter walks east for hour and then north for 1 1/2 hours. What course should the hunter take to return to his starting point?



So you draw your triangle and discover that you need to figure out an angle that is missing. Still keeping in mind SOHCAHTOA you notice that you need to use tan because you have opposite over adjacent. Because you have to find the angle you need the inverse. x=tan-1(1/1.5) plug it into your calculator and your answer is x=33.690 degrees. What course should the hunter take to get back to his starting point? Your answer would be SouthWest.




Example 2: A sailboat leaves its dock and proceeds east for 2 miles. It then changes course to 205 degrees until it its due sourth of its dock. How far south is this?





So you need to draw a triangle again. You notice that you need to use SOCAHTOA once again. And again you need to use tan because your finding a side that you need opposite over adjacent. tan65=x/2 x=2tan65 and you plug that into your calculator and get x=4.289 miles.


I still don't really get this though...

--- Danielleeee