Question

a fishing boat spots a 200 ft tall lighthouse on the coast. if the angle of elevation is 25°, how far from land is the fishing vessel

Answer 1

The boat is 428.9 feet from the lighthouse.

To solve this, draw a right triangle. You will see that you have an angle of 25 degrees with an opposite side of 200 and the adjacent side is x.

We can write and solve the following tangent equation:

tan(25) = 200 / x
x = 200 / tan(25)
x 428.9