Damar is buying a new windsail for his sailboat. The triangular sail is attached between a vertical pole that creates a 90° angle to the boat and a horizontal pole that is attached at the bottom of the vertical pole. If the vertical pole is 22 feet tall and the horizontal pole is 8 feet, what is the angle of the sail that is formed at the top of the vertical pole? Round your answer to the nearest whole degree.
We can use the tangent function to find the angle of the sail. The tangent of an angle is equal to the length of the opposite side divided by the length of the adjacent side. In this case, the length of the opposite side is 8 feet and the length of the adjacent side is 22 feet.
So, the tangent of the angle is equal to 8/22 = 0.3636.
To find the angle, we can use the inverse tangent function (arctan) on a calculator.
arctan(0.3636) ≈ 20.134 degrees.
Therefore, the angle of the sail at the top of the vertical pole is approximately 20 degrees.