How Do You Calculate the Velocity of a Powerboat Relative to the Shore?

[kamran93]

Homework Statement

A powerboat heads due northwest at 13 m/s relative to the water across a river that flows due north at 6.0 m/s. What is the velocity (both magnitude and direction) of the motorboat relative to the shore?

Homework Equations

i'm not sure

The Attempt at a Solution

i thought i could use the Pythagorean theorem

 

[phyzmatix]

Draw yourself a diagram of the problem and set up a convenient set of coordinate axes. You need to do vector addition so the easiest would be to find the components of the vectors in question.

Go from there :)