How Long to Catch a Drifting Boat on the Deschutes River?

[johnhuntsman]

"Assume that the Deschutes River has straight and parallel banks and that the current
is 0.75 m/s. Drifting down the river, you fall out of your boat and immediately grab
a piling of the Warm Springs Bridge. You hold on for 40 s and then swim after the
boat with a speed relative to the water of 0.95 m/s. The distance of the boat
downstream from the bridge when you catch it is..."

I've solved a similar problem in the past and normally I'd reference that homework, but my teacher has yet to hand that back. If someone could just point me in the right direction (i.e., set it up and tell where to go from there) I'd appreciate it.

Nevermind! Read post #2

 

[johnhuntsman]

Nervermind, just figured this out. I'd delete this thread but don't know how.

 

[szimmy]

The easiest way to go about this is to solve for t
To do this you're going to want two equations, one for the boat, and one for you swimming
Use the kinematic x = volt + 1/2at^2 for the equation (no acceleration makes this pretty simple)
As for the time difference, the time that the boat is traveling before it is caught is just time t correct?
Well using that, since you wait 40 seconds before chasing the boat, is it not true that the time that you swim is 40 seconds less than the time the boat is floating? Aka t - 40
From there it's just algebra, then use the time you find to find the displacement of the boat

EDIT: Whoops, didn't see that post you made. Wish I knew how to delete posts haha