Meg rowed her boat upstream a distance of 45 mi and then rowed back to the starting point. the total time of the trip was 14 hours. of the rate of the current was 2 mph, find the average speed of the boat relative to the water.

Recall your d = rt.

so hmm is about the same as the other one... so say the boat has a speed rate of "b", well, going downstream the boat goes say " b + 2 ", because the current is adding to it, and going upstream is " b - 2 " because the current is eroding from it.

So if the whole trip took 14 hours, say it took "t" hours going upstream, then going downstream it took the slack or " 14 - t ".

Also notice, the trip forth and back is the same 45 miles.