You are fishing in a boat anchored in a bay. You notice that the current is in the eastern direction with small wave crests that are 15 meters apart, and they are gently rocking the boat once every 5 seconds. You decide to lift the anchor and begin trolling slowly to the west at 2.0 meters/second. In 1–2 sentences, explain the strategy for calculating how often the wave crests will rock the boat in this situation based on your investigation.
1 answer
To calculate how often the wave crests will rock the boat while trolling to the west, we need to use the speed of the current and the distance between the wave crests to determine the wave period. Then, we can add the wave period to the time it takes for the boat to travel 15 meters (the distance between wave crests) at a speed of 2.0 meters/second to find out how often the wave crests will rock the boat.