Question

A ship travels 200km west from port and then 240km due south before it is disabled. Illustrate this in a vector diagram. Usa trigonometry to find the course that a rescue ship must take from port in order to reach the disabled ship.

i don't know where to begin, could someone just help know where to start?

Answer 1

Draw an x-y graph with the port at the origin (x=0, y=0) Let up (+y) be north and right (+x) be east. After going west the ship is at (-200, 0), which means x=-200, y=0. Draw the line that it travelled as an arrow from the origin to that point. Then draw another arrow for the next part of its journey, from (-200,0) to (-200,-240)..The course that a rescue ship must take is from (0,0) to (-200,-240)