Read Looking for a Ship Online
Authors: John McPhee
Looking for a Ship (5 page)
The words of the harbor pilot are, technically, advice. When the captain repeats them, they become commands. Half ahead, slow ahead, dead slow ahead, steady as she goes, slow astern, the ship maneuvers toward the dock. On the engine-order telegraph, Andy relays the commands to
the engine room, where the telegraph rings a bell. This is known as “giving them bells.” When J. Peter Fritz gives them bells, he sometimes calls first on the telephone to say, “Did I wake you? This is the chief mate.”
the engine room, where the telegraph rings a bell. This is known as “giving them bells.” When J. Peter Fritz gives them bells, he sometimes calls first on the telephone to say, “Did I wake you? This is the chief mate.”
Eight stories below the bridge, in the basement of the house, Graham Ramsay is on the maneuvering platform. In response to the bells, he shouts: “Ahead slow!” “Half astern!” “Stop!” His hands move from wheel to wheelâfrom throttle to throttle to guardian valve. The commands he relays send David Carter and Phillip Begin running into the fireroom to twist knobs above burners, altering by hand the flow of fuel and air. Begin, whose name is pronounced like “Keegan,” is the chief engineer. He is not required to twist knobs, but he is everywhere that matters when things are going on, and functions in a style that ignores his rank. He has a quick smile, blue eyes, hair that falls beyond his ears, a youthful handsome beardless face; and he has eaten very well. Carter is the demac on the four-to-eight watch âdeck and engine mechanic. He used to teach Spanish in Florida public schools and now, from books in his cabin, he is teaching himself engineering. He runs into the fireroom, comes back, wipes his forehead, and shouts, with striking emphasis on certain words, “Up on the
bridge
, they think they can speed up and slow down with
ease
. They don't realize we're scurrying around like
rats
trying to do what they
want
.”
bridge
, they think they can speed up and slow down with
ease
. They don't realize we're scurrying around like
rats
trying to do what they
want
.”
Up there eight stories, as they do their gavotte among Chilean warships, they approach the berth against the backdrop of the seaport, the steep and populated hills. Down
here, there is no Valparaiso. There is no sense of place. What attracts the eye is flashing colored lights. We could have made a landfall on Long Island. We could be nosing into the Gowanus Canal. “Stop” or no “Stop,” “Slow astern” or “Half ahead,” there is no sense of motion, either. Insteadâamong the burners, the boilers, the turbines, the tubesâthere is noise. The company supplies the earplugs. If you don't use them, a day will come when you cannot hear your alarm clock.
here, there is no Valparaiso. There is no sense of place. What attracts the eye is flashing colored lights. We could have made a landfall on Long Island. We could be nosing into the Gowanus Canal. “Stop” or no “Stop,” “Slow astern” or “Half ahead,” there is no sense of motion, either. Insteadâamong the burners, the boilers, the turbines, the tubesâthere is noise. The company supplies the earplugs. If you don't use them, a day will come when you cannot hear your alarm clock.
Graham Ramsay is the first. This stands for first assistant. He is known as the first because he is the second-ranking engineer. Near him stands Karl Knudsen, who is known as the second, because he is the third-ranking engineer. Knudsen is young, trim, aviator-handsome, with a competent mustache. He came up the hawsepipe, by way of a union school in Baltimore. He wears white leather shoes and green coveralls, and says, “In my business, appearances don't count.” Ramsay is a tall man with an experienced face, a friendly and vulnerable look, gray hairâUnited States Merchant Marine Academy, 1956. Because he is standing on a platform, his head is about seven feet above the deck, in a warm place. The engine room is full of hot spots. Its storied heat is by no means uniform. In the Panama Canal the temperature at Ramsay's head was a hundred and twenty-eight degrees, but of course it is milder in this midwinter Chilean sea. It is not quite a hundred and ten. There are places in the engine room that generally exceed a hundred and fifty degrees. People don't stand around in them much, but sometimes they have toâfor
example, if they are painting. Phil Begin, shouting, points out that the ship's cold-water pipes unaccountably cluster in the engine room, and that is why the house is full of hot toilets. I have a thermometer with me. When I put it in my pocket, my leg cools it off. A step down from the maneuvering platform is the engineers' flat, where a logbook lies open on a standing desk and the engine watch can loiter under four large blowers. In the course of a sea watch, the blowers and the water fountain provide the only relief available in four hours. The blowers are a foot in diameter and, somewhere above, are sucking in outside air. It picks up heat on its way down but feels good as it pours out. People stand under the blowers in much the way that people stand under showers. On some ships, they stand in the airstream according to rank, with the chief engineer farthest upcurrent. David Carter shouts in my ear, “Some guys just stand under the blower and don't do jack shit!” The blowers are always the coolest spots in the engine room. In the Caribbean, the temperature under the blowers will typically exceed a hundred and ten degrees. Some people, over time, grow to like the engine-room heatâlike it to the point of need. There is a sailor aboard who plugs up the air-conditioning vents in the ceiling of his cabin in order to get the temperature up to a hundred and ten degrees. Here in the winter South Pacific, the temperature directly under the blowers is eighty, and the temperature in the rest of the engineers' flat is ninety-seven. These are the lowest temperatures that the engineers will experience during the entire voyage. Like a bottle in a bucket of water, the engine room
is immersed in the sea. Sea temperature is to the engine room what air temperature is to the bridge. The sea temperature at Valparaiso is fifty-five degrees. The Caribbean reaches ninety.
example, if they are painting. Phil Begin, shouting, points out that the ship's cold-water pipes unaccountably cluster in the engine room, and that is why the house is full of hot toilets. I have a thermometer with me. When I put it in my pocket, my leg cools it off. A step down from the maneuvering platform is the engineers' flat, where a logbook lies open on a standing desk and the engine watch can loiter under four large blowers. In the course of a sea watch, the blowers and the water fountain provide the only relief available in four hours. The blowers are a foot in diameter and, somewhere above, are sucking in outside air. It picks up heat on its way down but feels good as it pours out. People stand under the blowers in much the way that people stand under showers. On some ships, they stand in the airstream according to rank, with the chief engineer farthest upcurrent. David Carter shouts in my ear, “Some guys just stand under the blower and don't do jack shit!” The blowers are always the coolest spots in the engine room. In the Caribbean, the temperature under the blowers will typically exceed a hundred and ten degrees. Some people, over time, grow to like the engine-room heatâlike it to the point of need. There is a sailor aboard who plugs up the air-conditioning vents in the ceiling of his cabin in order to get the temperature up to a hundred and ten degrees. Here in the winter South Pacific, the temperature directly under the blowers is eighty, and the temperature in the rest of the engineers' flat is ninety-seven. These are the lowest temperatures that the engineers will experience during the entire voyage. Like a bottle in a bucket of water, the engine room
is immersed in the sea. Sea temperature is to the engine room what air temperature is to the bridge. The sea temperature at Valparaiso is fifty-five degrees. The Caribbean reaches ninety.
“Stop!” Ramsay shouts, and Carter and Begin run through the fireroom to the burners. The fireroom is not an enclosure but a space framed by two boilers, each fired by three burners. Above the burners are red and green and yellow lights. The yellows are flashing. The emergency override is deliberately ignoring the sensor's electric eye. Elsewhere, the red lights of the flame scanners are steadily blinking. “Slow ahead!” Ramsay shouts, and, a minute later, “Stop!” Begin and Carter adjust the burners. They may be stopping while a mooring line goes out, but the engineers don't need to know. However, they are human, they are curious. In the Panama Canal, they did not even know if they were in the locks. In Gatun, the chief went up for a look. He came down and reported, “We're in the locks. There's a Maersk ship ahead of us. The rope handlers are coming on.” Under the blowers, faces looked up with interest.
“Slow astern!”
The burners, on either side, are numbered one, two, three. When Begin and Carter run to them, they are like football guards pulling out to execute a play, and they have to remember similar signals. Only the twos and threes are involved in a “Stop,” the ones and twos in “Half astern,” two and two in “Slow astern,” “Dead slow,” “Slow ahead,” and “Half ahead”âif head winds and currents don't
force, one of several alternative patterns. Feed water is all-important. It must be present or there's a meltdown. There's a big red box in the fireroom. It contains, by law, nine cubic feet of sand.
force, one of several alternative patterns. Feed water is all-important. It must be present or there's a meltdown. There's a big red box in the fireroom. It contains, by law, nine cubic feet of sand.
“Stop!” Ramsay shouts again as he spins a wheel. When Ramsay pays off in Charleston, he rides Amtrak home to Delaware. A man who can spend four months in an engine room at sea does not require an airplane to whisk him home. On his way north in the train, he sits by the window to watch the country. Across the eleven hours, he undergoes a land change. When he pulls into Wilmington, he is ready to be there. “FINISH WITH ENGINES!” he shouts. Ramsay, Begin, Carter, and Knudsen take the steam off the turbines, break the vacuum on the main condenser, and extinguish four of the six burners. One does not need a periscope to infer that the ship is tied up in Valparaiso.
F
ew of the watches that begin at 4 A.M. turn up the lights of cities. Most watches have a rhythmic sameness, plunging through the dark, with the scent of coffee percolating on the bridge, the scent of bacon from five decks below, Mac or Calvin invisible at the wheel, Andy the Navigatorâevery inch an officer in his bluejeans, running shoes, rolled-up sleevesâworking with dividers in the chartroom under a dim red lamp. In the first nine days on the Pacific, we put into port only once. One morning, a couple of hundred miles off the Colombian coastâat five-forty-nine, the hour of dawnâwe heard in the wind a distinct whinny.
ew of the watches that begin at 4 A.M. turn up the lights of cities. Most watches have a rhythmic sameness, plunging through the dark, with the scent of coffee percolating on the bridge, the scent of bacon from five decks below, Mac or Calvin invisible at the wheel, Andy the Navigatorâevery inch an officer in his bluejeans, running shoes, rolled-up sleevesâworking with dividers in the chartroom under a dim red lamp. In the first nine days on the Pacific, we put into port only once. One morning, a couple of hundred miles off the Colombian coastâat five-forty-nine, the hour of dawnâwe heard in the wind a distinct whinny.
We saw whales on the way south, and were led by porpoises. Albatrosses flew beside us, motionless to the point of impudence, their eyes on our necks, their great wings fixed, their iron momentum matching the ship's. At bridge level, sixty-five feet above the water, an albatross flew beside us with his right leg up scratching his ear. But not even
that was as weird as this whinny, in ocean air, so far from land. We knew, of course, where it came fromâand the whinnies that followed as wellâbut knowledge didn't make the sound less strange. Andy said, “These are not the horse latitudes.”
that was as weird as this whinny, in ocean air, so far from land. We knew, of course, where it came fromâand the whinnies that followed as wellâbut knowledge didn't make the sound less strange. Andy said, “These are not the horse latitudes.”
On Hatch 4, Bay 1, about halfway between the bridge and the bow, were four containers said to contain twenty-four thoroughbreds. One of them was Dr. Sab, out of White Reason by Seattle Slew. Undefeated in five starts, Dr. Sab was on his way to race in Guayaquil. So was The Admiral. So was Axe Lady. Most of the other horses were nameless two-year-olds on their way from Royal Eagle Farm, in Panama, to the stables of Silvio DeVoto, in Ecuador. To tote nine tons of horses eight hundred miles, Lykes Brothers was charging six thousand eight hundred dollars. For a few hundred more, the company was providing the food and lodging of Carlos Rolando Lopez, who described himself to me as the “assistant trainer of the principal horse, Dr. Sab.” Carlos numbered among his intimate friends the Panamanian jockeys. Jacinto Vasquez. Lafitt Pincay, Jr. Walter Guerra. Jorge Velasquez. Carlos said that his own mentor was Luis Ferrugia the Magician, “the best trainer in Panama City.” Carlos made these remarks, among other places, over mealsâwhere, from a Xeroxed menu, I helped him choose what he wanted.
Carlos was eating better than his horses. I went to Hatch 4 with him in the afternoon. The containers were stowed amidships with their doors open. As many as seven
horses were in one twenty-foot boxâin narrow wooden stalls framed within the steel. The two-year-olds were cribbing as if their lives depended on it. They were chewing up the wood of the stalls. Five hundred miles from Guayaquil, they had already made crescent-shaped indentations larger than slices of watermelon. They were chewing the posts as well as the rails. Carlos explained that they were hungry. He said a very strict diet of hay and water was the Magician's formula for avoiding seasickness. Unfortunately, someone had taken the great trainer too much at his word and had sent to the ship just eight little packets of hay. Carlos was not being democratic. He had been giving a full ration to Dr. Sab, somewhat less to Axe Lady and The Admiral, and pittances to the others. Two and a half packets of hay were left. Carlos was reserving it all for Dr. Sab. This son of Seattle Slewâand brother of Slew City Slew âwas a black horse that looked unpleasant, but the wood of his stall was whole.
horses were in one twenty-foot boxâin narrow wooden stalls framed within the steel. The two-year-olds were cribbing as if their lives depended on it. They were chewing up the wood of the stalls. Five hundred miles from Guayaquil, they had already made crescent-shaped indentations larger than slices of watermelon. They were chewing the posts as well as the rails. Carlos explained that they were hungry. He said a very strict diet of hay and water was the Magician's formula for avoiding seasickness. Unfortunately, someone had taken the great trainer too much at his word and had sent to the ship just eight little packets of hay. Carlos was not being democratic. He had been giving a full ration to Dr. Sab, somewhat less to Axe Lady and The Admiral, and pittances to the others. Two and a half packets of hay were left. Carlos was reserving it all for Dr. Sab. This son of Seattle Slewâand brother of Slew City Slew âwas a black horse that looked unpleasant, but the wood of his stall was whole.
I left Carlos and went to the bridge. The captain was attentive to the horses and asked how they were getting along. Vernon McLaughlin was at the ship's wheel, and as the story unfolded he burst out, “They're so fucking cheap they won't feed their horses. With wood in their stomachs, they can't pass it. That's a sin!”
“Carlos says that is not a problem,” I told him. “Carlos says, âThey could eat the whole ship.'”
Mac would not stoop to comment.
Time passed. A further thought occurred to me. “Dr.
Sab is undefeated,” I remarked. “Impressive as that may be, he has run in only five races, and he is five years old. What has he been doing?”
Sab is undefeated,” I remarked. “Impressive as that may be, he has run in only five races, and he is five years old. What has he been doing?”
Captain Washburn said, “He's been eating.”
Those were watches of targets and rain. The weather was so heavy one morning that when the light came up we couldn't see the bow. Peewee was on lookout in the bow. Calvin King was at the wheel, standing somewhat heavily, tiredâCalvin, from Weldon, North Carolina, a grandfather, in his tortoiseshell bifocals, his Lykes Brothers cap, his khaki shirt, his brown leather shoes, his bluejeans patched in the seat with cloth of another color. Andy was leaning over the north-up radar, marking the plotting head with a grease pencil. Calvin said, “This ain't no workin' weather. I'm too old for this shit.” He was referring not to quartermasteringâhis turn at the wheel on the four-to-eight watchâbut to overtime work on the open deck, which would fill his day between eight and four. Two of the windows in front of him had spinning circles of glass set like bifocals into the panes. They whirl so fast you can see through rain. But not very far that morning.
Targets had been appearing on the radar in close abundance since the watch began. At four-thirty, in clearer air before the rain, two ships were ahead of usâsix and a half miles and nine miles distant. The nearer one was lit up like a city and might have been anything from a passenger vessel to a fish processor. On the farther ship, a green (starboard) light was visible. Was she crossing to the right or was she not moving? On the plotting head Andy marked their positions
with the grease pencil. The plotting head is a Plexiglas screen that fits above the radar screen and is illuminated from the sides in a way that emboldens the wax from the pencil. Calvin, to whom these collision-avoidance procedures amounted to nothing more than background routine, was saying that when he goes off the ship in Panama he does not like to stray much farther than the duty-free shop at the end of the pier. “If there's fighting, you might catch a 38 or a .44.”
with the grease pencil. The plotting head is a Plexiglas screen that fits above the radar screen and is illuminated from the sides in a way that emboldens the wax from the pencil. Calvin, to whom these collision-avoidance procedures amounted to nothing more than background routine, was saying that when he goes off the ship in Panama he does not like to stray much farther than the duty-free shop at the end of the pier. “If there's fighting, you might catch a 38 or a .44.”
Andy kept his nose on the radar and made two more marks with the pencil. In time, he responded to Calvin, saying, “I don't like those low temperatures.”
Calvin, who has described himself as “an old country boy,” likes guns and collects them. He has been looking for a nine-shooter .22 revolver for his wife, but a nine-shooter .22 is not easy to find. He may have to settle for a .32. “A .32-calibre pistol with a three- or four-inch barrel on it is a woman's special,” he has told me. “It's not as big as a .38, and a woman can handle it.”
The radar's nearer target was four miles away, and Andy still made no course change. He was convinced that the ships were not moving. The nearer one had red over white over red on her mast, signifying that she was restricted in her ability to maneuver. She could be a seismic ship with a two-mile cable. Andy picked up the short-range transceiver. “Calling one of two stationary vessels approximately thirty minutes north, eighty degrees west,” he said. “This is the southbound ship a few miles north of you.” There was no answer. When the targeted ships were three and a
half and four and a half miles away, Andy told Calvin to take Stella off the iron mikeâthe autopilotâand “put it on hand” (Calvin's hand). With a three-mile cushion, we passed two large stationary fishing vesselsâone improperly lighted. Minutes later, four new targets appeared on the radar, about ten miles away. Andy made two course changes that moved the bow twenty degrees, and he pressed a button called Trial Maneuver on the Automatic Radar Plotting Aid of the Collision Avoidance System, which showed him what would happen at any course and speed he might choose. In the terminology of this machine, “CPA” meant “Closest Point of Approach.” In the event of a flat-out plate-buckling tectonic crash, the machine would let you know that you had “Zero CPA.” The spread of four ships was now four miles away. With a final glance at the machine, Andy chose a heading of a hundred and seventy. He said to Calvin, “Left to one-seven-zero.”
half and four and a half miles away, Andy told Calvin to take Stella off the iron mikeâthe autopilotâand “put it on hand” (Calvin's hand). With a three-mile cushion, we passed two large stationary fishing vesselsâone improperly lighted. Minutes later, four new targets appeared on the radar, about ten miles away. Andy made two course changes that moved the bow twenty degrees, and he pressed a button called Trial Maneuver on the Automatic Radar Plotting Aid of the Collision Avoidance System, which showed him what would happen at any course and speed he might choose. In the terminology of this machine, “CPA” meant “Closest Point of Approach.” In the event of a flat-out plate-buckling tectonic crash, the machine would let you know that you had “Zero CPA.” The spread of four ships was now four miles away. With a final glance at the machine, Andy chose a heading of a hundred and seventy. He said to Calvin, “Left to one-seven-zero.”
Calvin said, “Left to one-seven-zero. One-seven-zero, hand steering.”
We went past the targets and, for the moment, into the clear. From the bridge wings we could see the lights of seven fishing boats and three merchant ships. The merchant ships were following us. We had overtaken them. To look far down over the side at light from our ship on the racing dark water was to feel the power of the weighted glide, its controlled uncontrollability. We were a bowling ball, avoiding duckpins.
Andy changed the heading back to two-one-zero. As we headed into a line squall, a radar target on our left seemed
to insist on crossing our bow. Andy said, “She's coming down my hawsepipe. Fishing boats maneuver so much you don't move on them until you're close enough to know they won't turn.” Then he swung right and passed the target, a mile and a half away. The rainstorm, on the radar, looked like a sweet potato.
to insist on crossing our bow. Andy said, “She's coming down my hawsepipe. Fishing boats maneuver so much you don't move on them until you're close enough to know they won't turn.” Then he swung right and passed the target, a mile and a half away. The rainstorm, on the radar, looked like a sweet potato.
Andy enjoys his work with the radar, and, by his own matter-of-fact description, is good at it. He can look at the screen, see multiple targets, and sense the geometries of course and speed. He intuitively grasps the direction of ships even before he has plotted their paths with dots and streaks. He has a sense of deceptive landmarks. He can look at a radared coastline and not be fooled by cliffs that appear to rise from the water but in fact stand far behind a beach. He has spent a good deal of time in the radar-simulator laboratory at the Maine Maritime Academy, where there are four named practice rooms: Andrea Doria, Yellowstone, Ponce de Le6n, Stockholm. What the Stockholm was to the Andrea Doria the Yellowstone was to the Ponce de León. “Radar work is my strong point,” he once told me. “I feel that I can outmaneuver a lot of people with the radar. Overtaking a boat is more dangerous than it seems. She's out there for a long time, and a steering-gear failure, or whatever, has more time in which to occur. It's like slowly passing a tractor trailer. You think about the jackknife.”
A seagoing lieutenant in the United States Navy once asked me if merchant ships have radar. After learning that they do, he asked if the mates use grease pencils. He seemed surprised. Merchant mariners, for their part, tend to characterize
Navy people as green and earnest. They joke about the redundant multitudes that inhabit a Navy-ship bridge. There is a story much told by Navy people and yachtsmen about a merchant ship steaming somewhere at nineteen knots with a dog on the bridge, alone on watch. Andy and I call a tale like that an asmut: an apocryphal story much told. One such yarn, which he told that morning, led up to a question that was supposedly put to a merchant skipper as he arrived in port: “Captain, have you seen any sailboats recently?”
Navy people as green and earnest. They joke about the redundant multitudes that inhabit a Navy-ship bridge. There is a story much told by Navy people and yachtsmen about a merchant ship steaming somewhere at nineteen knots with a dog on the bridge, alone on watch. Andy and I call a tale like that an asmut: an apocryphal story much told. One such yarn, which he told that morning, led up to a question that was supposedly put to a merchant skipper as he arrived in port: “Captain, have you seen any sailboats recently?”
“No.”
“Well, you should have. There's a mast and rigging hanging from your anchor.”
Without taking his eyes off the north-up radar, Andy said, “Yachtsmen like to tell that story. Merchant seamen see yachtsmen as bozos, but I've been with yachtsmen who could teach some seamanship to merchant seamen. Yachtsmen see merchant seamen as people who cruise with no one on the bridge. Yachtsmen display poor seamanship, too. There are more cases of yachts creating problems for big ships than big ships creating problems for yachts. We need a mile of cushion around us, at least. There are a lot of yachtsmen who are out there just to drink beer.”
The difference between the ten-centimetre radar and the three-centimetre radar has to do with detail versus range, and has nothing to do with north up. Either radar can be set that wayâwith north at the top of the screen, as on an ordinary map. I have been referring to the ten-centimetre radar as the north-up radar because that, at the time, was
how the world was presented on its screen. The ship was steaming south, so targets ahead of us, as they showed up at the bottom of the screen, appeared to be behind us. In this sense, the plotting of targets was backward. When the north-up feature was added to radars, it caused no little annoyance. “You can do more with north up,” Andy said. “Modern sailors are trained that way; the old-timers were not.” The north-up advantage in maneuvering is that watch officers do not have to replot the position and the course of every target on the screen each time they change course themselves. On north-up radar, you are moving through the real world, and not through an artificial seascape determined by the vector of your ship. Andy, facing the bow and leaning over the screen, had no difficulty understanding that the Stella Lykesâas represented by the screen's centerâwas moving not toward the bow but toward him. This was too much for Captain Washburn. In the way that a person driving south with a road map will turn it upside down the better to comprehend what lies ahead, Captain Washburn wanted his radar screen aimed in the direction of the ship. Of the three-centimetre radar he said that morning, as he did virtually every morning, “Leave it on head up for me.” When Andy joined the ship and Washburn told him how he liked things done, Andy asked the captain if he wanted the radars north up or head up. Washburn said he knew that more could be done with north up, “but always leave one of them on head up for me.”
how the world was presented on its screen. The ship was steaming south, so targets ahead of us, as they showed up at the bottom of the screen, appeared to be behind us. In this sense, the plotting of targets was backward. When the north-up feature was added to radars, it caused no little annoyance. “You can do more with north up,” Andy said. “Modern sailors are trained that way; the old-timers were not.” The north-up advantage in maneuvering is that watch officers do not have to replot the position and the course of every target on the screen each time they change course themselves. On north-up radar, you are moving through the real world, and not through an artificial seascape determined by the vector of your ship. Andy, facing the bow and leaning over the screen, had no difficulty understanding that the Stella Lykesâas represented by the screen's centerâwas moving not toward the bow but toward him. This was too much for Captain Washburn. In the way that a person driving south with a road map will turn it upside down the better to comprehend what lies ahead, Captain Washburn wanted his radar screen aimed in the direction of the ship. Of the three-centimetre radar he said that morning, as he did virtually every morning, “Leave it on head up for me.” When Andy joined the ship and Washburn told him how he liked things done, Andy asked the captain if he wanted the radars north up or head up. Washburn said he knew that more could be done with north up, “but always leave one of them on head up for me.”
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