What is the thought process for this? I can't seem to come up with an equation to solve here.
"Mr R rows his boat $24$ km downstream and then $24$ km back upstream where he began, all in a total of $9$ hours. If his rowing speed in still water is $x$, and the speed of the current in the stream is $2$ km/h, then algebraically determine the speed in each direction."
I used the formula: distance = velocity * time. I made a table where the distance is $24$ the speed $(x + 2)$ or $(x - 2)$ depending on whether you're going up or downstream and time to be $\frac{24}{(x+2)}$ or $\frac{24}{(x-2)}$ again depending on whether you're going up or down.
Putting it all together, I got: $\frac{24}{(x-2)} + \frac{24}{(x+2)} = 9$. However, I am not sure if this is the right answer or not because I have to use the quadratic formula to solve this. We're not supposed to use the quadratic formula in this. Can anyone help?