Can you explain this to me?

Can you explain this problem:
A ship and a raft start simultaneously down the stream from point A. the ship reached point B spent 18 hours there and started back to A. When it was 180 miles from A the second ship departed from A 40 hours later caught up with the raft that had traveled 144 miles by that time. the distance between A and B is 324 miles. The speed of the current is constant, the speed of the raft equals to the speed of the current the speeds of the ships in still water are equal. What are the speeds of the ships and the current?
I have no idea what to do. Help please?

Wait is this physics? or Math?

It's what my friend called "basic algebra".

There is no second ship. Did you count the raft as a ship?

technically in the problem there are 3 ships. Think they use the second ship as a reference. But this is what i think. I don't have any clue. Im going to ask my math teacher but i doubt she will be any help =/

Lev I think you should stop doing complex math problems and instead focus on chem questions ...Ill tell the Mailman on you

lol you said Mail-Man

like OMG.. my head hurts..
this ain't basic at all...

I know...it sounds like her name doesn't it

BTW I doubt Hoftizer will be able to answer it...I heard she is a bad teacher...

My brother had a problem similar to this. There was a formula for it. I'll try to get it.

whny dont you wright out a diagram on paper and use the ship and raft as points, and we know the steam is a line and both vessel are going the same speed and we could account for the time of departures.... ok because i did not make a diagram i hit a dead end. gl and hopefully my idea does not throw you off.

We were doing this stuff earlier in the year. I completely forgot it >.<
Just wait 'till you get parabolic motion.

What's Parabolic motion?

Lev, did you figure it out yet?