A motorboat can maintain a constant speed of 20 mph relative to the water.The boat travels upstream to a certain point in 1 hour; the return trip 30 minutes. What is the speed of the current?

Question

I need steps for figuring out this problem. Need the speed of the current on return trip

Answer 1

Let the speed of the current be c. I suspect the boat’s speed is measured in still water so the effective speed against the current is 20-c and with the current it’s 20+c, so it takes longer to travel upstream.

Time=distance/speed. The distance is constant so we can write distance=60(20-c)=30(20+c).

2(20-c)=20+c, 40-2c=20+c, 3c=20, c=20/3mph=6⅔mph. The speed of the current cannot vary.