Vectors, How to measure total force and direction.

Question

I am currently looking for some math help that I am quite struggling with. The problem is:

(Vectors) A fisherman use his pole and line to pull a fish out of the water. The line exerts a force on the fish that is $9.4 N$ in the horizontal direction, and $15.4 N$ in the vertical direction. What is the size of the total force, and its direction(measured from horizontal)?

I'm assuming I would proceed to use the pythagorean theorem to solve the total force, but how would I find the direction? I'm aware of it would be one of the Sine, Cosine, or Tangents, but I am not sure how to identify which one to use it to calculate it.

$\sqrt{9.4^2 + 15.4^2} = 18.04217$ which is the total force.

Answer 1

Can't comment, but generally 99% of the time I have found out that you use the tan ratio to solve these types of problems in terms of angle.

Answer 2

you have 2 known sides of a right triangle. You can use the Pythagorean theorem to discover the other side. Obviously, because there are more than 1 known sides and the angle is unknown, you wouldn't use any trigonometric ratio. You need to apply an inverse trigonometric function.