Just want to know how to solve bearing.

Question

Two ships leave a port at the same time. The first ship sails on a course 35° at 15 knots, while the second ship sails on a course of 125° at 20 knots. Find after 2 hours (a) The distance between the ships, (b)the bearing from the first ship to the second, and (c) the bearing of the second ship to the first.

Just want to know how to solve bearing.

Answer 1

Make a picture.

The first ship sails 30 nautical miles into quadrant I in Cartesian co-ordinates.

The second ship sails 40 nautical miles into quadrant II.

They are actually sailing at right angles to each other; therefore, the distance between them can be calculated from the Theorem of Pythagoras (and, BTW it is a 3-4-5 right triangle so the hypotenuse is easy to know without Pythagoras!)

The angle from the course of ship 1 to the point of ship 2 is simply arctan of 4/3!