A sailboat weighing 980 lb with its occupants is running downwind at 8 mi/h when its spinnaker is raised to increase its speed. Determine the net force provided by the spinnaker over the 10-s interval that it takes for the boat to reach a speed of 12 mi/h.

78.498N

Explanation:

The Net force provided by the spinnaker can be obtained from Newton's second law of motion as follows;

where m is the mass, v is the final velocity, u is the initial velocity and t is the time interval for which the force acted.

Given;

m =980lb

v = 12mi/h

u =8mi/hr

t = 10s.

It is important to convert all quantities to their SI units where necessary, so we do that as follows;

1lb = 0.45kg,

hence 980lb = 980 x 0.45kg = 441kg.

1mile = 1609.34m

1hour = 3600s,

therefore;

Substituting all values into equation (1), we obtain the following;