Step 1 :The last 60 boat rentals at a boat rental company were 38 sunfish, 10 kayaks, and 12 rowboats. We are asked to determine the empirical probability that the next boat rental is a kayak.
Step 2 :The empirical probability is calculated by dividing the number of times an event occurs by the total number of observations or trials. In this case, the event is a kayak rental and the total number of observations is the total number of boat rentals.
Step 3 :From the given information, we know that there were 10 kayak rentals and a total of 60 boat rentals.
Step 4 :Substitute these values into the formula for empirical probability to get: \(P(\text{kayak}) = \frac{\text{kayak rentals}}{\text{total rentals}} = \frac{10}{60}\).
Step 5 :Simplify the fraction to get the final answer: \(P(\text{kayak}) = \boxed{\frac{1}{6}}\)