The boat covered a distance of 24 km with the current in 4 hours and against the current in 6 hours.

The boat covered a distance of 24 km with the current in 4 hours and against the current in 6 hours. Find your own boat speed and river speed.

First, you need to determine the speed of movement of the boat with and against the current.
We divide the indicated distance by the time of movement.
24/4 = 6 km / h (downstream speed).
24/6 = 4 km / h (speed upstream).
The boat’s own speed will be equal to the arithmetic mean of the speeds obtained.
Thus, we get:
(4 + 6) / 2 = 5 km / h.
Find the speed of the river.
We subtract our own speed from the downstream speed.
6 – 5 = 1 km / h.
Or we subtract from the boat’s own speed its upstream speed.
5 – 4 = 1 km / h.
Answer: 5 km / h and 1 km / h.