How would an engineer use the information on the graph to determine
whether this plastic is suitable for a
particular application?

The boat's velocity relative to the riverbank can be resolved into two components. the component going north is 2.7 m/s and the component going west is 1.2 m/s.we add these two vectors and then find the magnitude of the resultant to get the speed.the magnitude of the resultant vector from adding can be obtained by the pythagorean theorem.    to two significant figures, the boat's speed relative to the riverbank is 3.0 m/s.

Since you have not included the experiment situation and the data, of course, i can not give you specific details about it. but i can you with this question.1) i will assume that the motion is projectile (parabolic) motion.2) yes, the horizontal distance depends on the horizontal velocity as, naming vx the horizontal velocity and t the time, it is: x = vx × t3) now, observe that the flight time depends on the vertical velocity as, naming voy the initial vertical velocity, t the time and y the vertical distance before reaching the ground: y = yo + voy×t - gt² / 2.the higher the initial vertical velocity (voy) the longer the object will be flying and so t will be higher in the equation for the horizontal distance.that explains the relationship between the horizontal distance and the horizontal velocity.