What is the angle θ between the tow rope and the center line

[Angela_vaal]

Homework Statement

Water skiers often ride to one side of the center line of a boat, as shown in the figure (Figure 1) . In this case, the ski boat is traveling at 15 m/s and the tension in the rope is 90 N.If the boat does 3700 N of work on the skier in 54.8 m, what is the angle θ between the tow rope and the center line of the boat?

Homework Equations

work=force x Δdistance

The Attempt at a Solution

I feel all over the place with this one. I don't know where to start. All i know is that I will be getting the angle of cosine since movement is in the horizontal direction.

 

[TomHart]

work=force x Δdistance

So you have a force of 90 N, and you have a distance of 54.8 meters. What if you multiply those two together? You get 4932 J. That number is larger than the 3700 N (Newton? units are wrong on the 3700) of work stated in the problem. So apparently, all of that 90 N force is not being used to perform work. So the angle θ has to somehow come into play. How much of that 90 N force is being used to produce work?

 

[WrongMan]

just to add on what TomHart said... free body diagrams are very helpful...