# Titanic error Revealed?



## Ferdinand Foch (Sep 22, 2010)

Ok, I can't really believe this. I'll let you folks come to your own conclusions, but I think that the reason for the Titanic sinking has already been established. 

Titanic sunk by steering mistake, author says - Yahoo! News


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## Colin1 (Sep 22, 2010)

Ferdinand Foch said:


> I think that the reason for the Titanic sinking has already been established


What aspect of the Titanic's sinking?
The engineering reasons certainly, the design limitations of the watertight bulkheads were made starkly apparent wrt the nature of the damage that was incurred. The contribution of the engineering limitations however, were strictly post-collision.

The piece you submitted may (or may not) shed light on the pre-collision issues of command and control that led to the collision in the first instance; being a steersman on a flagship ocean liner and turning a wheel right that should have gone left strikes me as a bit of a howler, as mistakes go.

There appears to be an interesting interweave between pre- and post-collision; the bulkheads were clearly going to fail but the alleged instruction from Ismay to keep the boat moving seems to have accelerated the failure to a speedier outcome.


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## Messy1 (Sep 22, 2010)

Not sure what to think about that story. I am curious though about the decision to continue sailing, and if it did in deed contribute to the titanic sinking hours earlier. That I do find interesting.


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## Ferdinand Foch (Sep 22, 2010)

Sorry, Colin. I should have clarified my stance. I meant that, personally, the Titanic was doomed the moment it hit the iceberg. Water had already began to pour into six of the compartments, two more than originally designed for. As soon as the water entered in, it was only for a matter of time the water to rise over the bulkheads at E deck. Even with the pumps at full blast, there was no way to save the ship. 

As for the steering error, my opinion of Hitchens isn't that great for not going back to pick up survivors-though I can understand why he did it-I would have thought that he was trained enough to know how to handle a situation like an imminent collision. 
I don't want to sound arrogant, but I would just like to see a little more evidence other than Second Officer Lightoller's confession. Its not that I don't believe him, just that this is too big a subject just to rely on an eyewitness alone. 
If I see any more articles on this, I'll post them up. This was the only one I could find. Hope this helped, Colin. FF.


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## Gnomey (Sep 22, 2010)

It is interesting but still not sure what to think about that one. Pretty retarded mistake to make it is true but I guess we'll never truly know.


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## Messy1 (Sep 22, 2010)

Thanks FF. Good explanation.


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## mikewint (Sep 22, 2010)

when i first saw your post, it struck a chord with me, had the titanic steered into the iceburg and crashed head on into it, it is possible that fewer seams would have opened, perhaps only two. the glancing blow caused rivets to pop and opened the frontside to the sea.
the steering part was not clear in the article, as i recall two of her props were either forward or reverse. ships can be steered like tractors so turning the wheel left, and reversing port engines would increase the turn rate but with titanics inertia its problematical it could have missed the burg. and i fail to see how running the ship forward could increase the influx of water. now if they could have pumped ballast to the port and listed the ship they might have raised the gash
and breaking into all those pieces? not as i recall. the ship (stern) raised high into the air broke off at the rear expansion joint and is in two pieces on the bottom


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## Colin1 (Sep 22, 2010)

Ferdinand Foch said:


> As for the steering error, my opinion of Hitchens isn't that great for not going back to pick up survivors-though I can understand why he did it-I would have thought that he was trained enough to know how to handle a situation like an imminent collision.
> 
> I don't want to sound arrogant, but I would just like to see a little more evidence other than Second Officer Lightoller's confession. Its not that I don't believe him, just that this is too big a subject just to rely on an eyewitness alone


I didn't realise Hitchens was also in the position whereby he would make the call on whether or not to return and pick up survivors but wrt the command and control theme that I alluded to, there seems to be an underlying issue of 'training' or as it would appear, lack thereof; I was under a maybe misguided impression that as a seaman, you worked your way up to flagship duty under which circumstances training was implicit and experience verified by some form of screening. In such a scenario, though not impossible, it is difficult to imagine panic being the first reaction of a key crewman.

There is nothing arrogant about your stance - evidence, evidence, evidence. Anything else is hot air.


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## Ferdinand Foch (Sep 22, 2010)

He, thanks Colin. I just like to make sure that I am not full of myself. I believe Hitchens was in command of a lifeboat, the same one with Molly Brown. When the people were in the water, he was afraid of going back for fear of the boat being swamped by the soon to be dead survivors. I know that him and Molly got into an arguement, but I can't remember any of the details-it wasn't portrayed the same way in the movie, though. 

If I recall directly, though-and this was from a discovery channel special on Titanic-the ship was only a quarter mile from the berg, not two miles. It was a moonless night, meaning that there wouldn't be a reflection off the berg. It was a calm sea as well, so the lookouts wouldn't be able to have water breaking off the iceberg, making it easier to spot. What was worse was that in getting out of Southhampton, the binoculars for the lookouts were left behind, leaving Fleet and Lee to use only their eyes. 

Mike, you do have a point about the screws. When reverse, only the two larger propellars would be able to turn, the central screw remained dormant-I can't remember why though, it had something to do with the power supply. 
In short, if Mr. Murdoch had either rammed the berg while going reverse, then only two or three compartments would have flooded-at least that's the most likely scenario. It would have been alright if the ship had turned to starboard going full speed, since that would have probably given it enough power to move out of the way. However, by ordering full astern, Murdoch lost the speed nessesary to turn, which caused Titanic to be hit at a vunerable spot. 
Oh mike, I want to say that the gash theory has been debunked. It was the common theory at the time before they found the ship. But on closer examination, what appeared to happen was that iceberg had buckled the plates, popping off several rivets in each compartment that allowed seawater to flood in. I think a few people speculated that they rivets were of poor quality and became very brittle in the cold Atlantic water, but I forgot how they figured it out. 
And no problem Messy.


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## Messy1 (Sep 23, 2010)

I have heard something before about the rivet theory too FF, but cannot remember all the details myself.


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## mikewint (Sep 23, 2010)

Ferdinand, bad choice of terminology, i did not mean gash as in ripped open but a separation gash where plates had been rivited together. the steel used (recovered from the wreck) was tested at the U of Mo and found to contain high amounts of sulfur, oxygen, and phosphorus which contribute to making the steel brittle especially when cold. however the worst problem was the rivits. the buliders were attempting to make three titanic ships at he same time. each required 3 million rivits plus the skilled men to do this precise job (specific cherry-red temp and the exact numbe ofhammer blows). records show that the builders unable to acquire enough #4 bar settled for a cheaper #3 bar and went outside their normal suppliers. rivits recovered from titanic showed many of these rivits to be inferior and riddled with slag
as i recall the seam separation was small 6 inches or so wide but allowed more than 2 compartments to flood
as for the engines as i recall the center was driven by a steam turbine while the port and starbord engines were standard steam reciprocating engines easily reversed


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## ccheese (Sep 23, 2010)

The tale of the Titanic has fascinated me for decades. I have read so many books on the subject, I've forgotten about
most of them, and the details. 

However, I have, hanging on my den wall, the front page of The New York Times which broke the news. My maternal
grand-mother saved the newspaper, and gave it to my mother. My mother gave it to me about 30 years ago and I had
the front page framed. I have turned down an offer of $1,000.00 for it from the Titanic Society.

The newspaper is dated "Tuesday - April 16, 1912". The paper sold, at that time, for one cent [US].

Note: The photo had to be retouched before it was printed, because it clearly shows smoke coming from
the fourth funnel. The fourth funnel was for show only, it did not connect to any of the fire-rooms.

The white spot under the ship is where the newspaper was folded, then folded again, causing the corner
to tear away.

Charles


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## Messy1 (Sep 23, 2010)

That is a cool item Charles.


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## mikewint (Sep 23, 2010)

yes, that is really a fantastic heirloom, have you done anyting to preserve it?


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## Trebor (Sep 23, 2010)

whoa, Charles, I'd LOVE to have a copy of that!


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## ccheese (Sep 23, 2010)

mikewint said:


> yes, that is really a fantastic heirloom, have you done anyting to preserve it?



The man who framed it for me said that preserving newsprint was almost impossible. He guessed that 
the rag content of the paper would make it last for a very long time, provided it was not handled. It's
been in a frame for about 30 years.... however it has started to "yellow".

It's not going anywhere anytime soon.....

Charles


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## mikewint (Sep 23, 2010)

the newsprint process requires the use of acid washes. the pulp is rinsed but some acid remain which along with oxygen causes the yellowing. might cost $$ but a sealed frame with an inert gas like argon. i think there are companies that can also use a base wash to neutralize the acids. again not cheap
i have papers from kennedy and the end of the vietnam war but that is way cool


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## ccheese (Sep 23, 2010)

I think I will leave it alone, Mike. In two years it will be 100 years old [I will be 78]. What is strange is neither of my
kids want it !! My son told me he'd rather have my truck ['87 Mazda B2000] and my daughter's response was "What the
hell do I want with *that* ? I think I will donate it to the Mariner's Museum in Newport News, Va. when I 
depart this earth.

Charles


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## Ferdinand Foch (Sep 23, 2010)

Mike, my bad for misreading you. Thanks for the rivet story. I forgot most of the details, but I knew that the rivets weren't as strong as they could have been. 

Charles, that is really cool with you paper. Yeah, hold on to it as long as you can. Too bad your kids don't want it. I know that my mom still keeps letters that a relative of hers wrote during the Civil War.


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## mikewint (Sep 23, 2010)

there was a short news piece on comcast about the titanic steering. they stated that confusion on how to stear caused the turn into the burg rather than away. they also stated that the movie, by coincidence, shows the incorrect turn as the helmsmen turns the wheel to the port (counterclockwise). this is supposed to make the ship turn to the right?????
does anyone understand this???
i have a 54ft crusier and it turns just like a car or using the twin engines i can steer just like a tractor without the rudder


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## Wayne Little (Sep 24, 2010)

ccheese said:


> The tale of the Titanic has fascinated me for decades. I have read so many books on the subject, I've forgotten about
> most of them, and the details.
> 
> However, I have, hanging on my den wall, the front page of The New York Times which broke the news. My maternal
> ...



Holy Sh!t Charles...that is just fantastic mate, like you it has fascinated me too, always stop to watch Titanic related stuff.


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## Ferdinand Foch (Sep 24, 2010)

mikewint said:


> there was a short news piece on comcast about the titanic steering. they stated that confusion on how to stear caused the turn into the burg rather than away. they also stated that the movie, by coincidence, shows the incorrect turn as the helmsmen turns the wheel to the port (counterclockwise). this is supposed to make the ship turn to the right?????
> does anyone understand this???
> i have a 54ft crusier and it turns just like a car or using the twin engines i can steer just like a tractor without the rudder



Mike, I think I can explain this a little bit, let me see if this helps. When first aware of the burg, Murdoch ordered Hitchens "hard a starboard." At that time, nautical terms dictated that this would mean left, or in modern nautical terminology "hard to port." Though once Titanic hit the iceberg, Murdoch ordered Hitchens to "hard a port," to turn the wheel to the right, or modern day starboard. Murdoch did this in the hope that the stern section of Titanic could steer away from the iceberg in time. I don't think that was the case, though.


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## mikewint (Sep 24, 2010)

ferdinand, while i understand your words the concept itself makes no sense. i did more research and the comparison was made to a small sail boat and its rudder. to go port the tiller is pushed to the right and vice versus. they also stated that the titanic sailed when a change between sail and steam was occurring which is nonsense. clipper ships had not sailed for 30 years or more and even sailing ship are turned via a wheel. the tiller mechanism is below decks and moved with a block and tackle so the helmsman still turns counterclockwise to go port and vice versus


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## Marcel (Sep 24, 2010)

ccheese said:


> I think I will leave it alone, Mike. In two years it will be 100 years old [I will be 78]. What is strange is neither of my
> kids want it !! My son told me he'd rather have my truck ['87 Mazda B2000] and my daughter's response was "What the
> hell do I want with *that* ? I think I will donate it to the Mariner's Museum in Newport News, Va. when I
> depart this earth.
> ...



I want it!


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## mikewint (Sep 24, 2010)

ferdinand, ok i'm a landlubber, further research on my part confirms the reversed (seeming) orders. sailors gave steering orders in terms of the rudder's tiller. so the wheel was turned counterclockwise (left) so that the tiller would be moved to the right causing the ship to turn left. this tiller steering terminology remained in effect on british ships until 1933 and on US ship until 1935 well after the titanic.
so Murdock's order "hard to starboard" was a tiller order and the helmsman correctly turned the wheel to the left swinging the bow 22 degrees to the left almost missing the burg. 
titanics sister the olympic collided with a british warship, flooded two compartment and returned to port


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## Ferdinand Foch (Sep 24, 2010)

Hey mike, no worries. It takes a little while to get use to. I think that its one of those cases where the technology of man outpaced the mental process of man. If that makes sense. 
I guess old habits die hard.


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## mikewint (Sep 24, 2010)

The reason given, besides tradition, is that sailors steered so many different types of boats that a standard need to be set and they decided to keep the old tiller steering. as far as titanic is concerned the order was correctly given by murdock and correctly followed by the helmsman. the ship turned left and almost missed the burg. there was no error.
my earlier point was that if the engines had been reversed and the wheel not turned the head on collision might only have opened the front two compartment and the ship would have remained afloat. 
titanics sister the olympic collided with a british warship, flooded two compartments and returned unaided to port


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## imalko (Sep 24, 2010)

The thing with the head on collision isn't only the number of compartments that would be flooded, but also how entire ship would take the force of the impact. It might compromise structural integrity of the entire vessel. It comes to the speed of the ship at the time of the impact I suppose though.


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## Colin1 (Sep 24, 2010)

Ferdinand Foch said:


> If I see any more articles on this, I'll post them up. This was the only one I could find. Hope this helped, Colin


Ferdie
an interesting read

Sinking


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## mikewint (Sep 24, 2010)

the bow of a ship is it's strongest point (no pun) and the burg would have crumbled a bit and moved a bit all of which help absorb impact. initially the ship was running at a record 22.5 knots. with all engines in reverse that would have been reduced (the reciprocating were easily reversable, i'm not sure about the turbine) the bow section was mostly storage and crew quarters and the ship was designed to run with three flooded compartments and could even stay afloat if a fouth flooded. the burg opened 5 compartments in the side swipe something around 3 -4 square feet of total opening. 
so what a head-on would have done is speculation, but the bow is made to take stress. i'm sure that there would have been lots of serious injuries and even deaths but look at what the sideswipe did


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## tail end charlie (Sep 24, 2010)

mikewint said:


> the bow of a ship is it's strongest point (no pun) and the burg would have crumbled a bit and moved a bit all of which help absorb impact. initially the ship was running at a record 22.5 knots. with all engines in reverse that would have been reduced (the reciprocating were easily reversable, i'm not sure about the turbine) the bow section was mostly storage and crew quarters and the ship was designed to run with three flooded compartments and could even stay afloat if a fouth flooded. the burg opened 5 compartments in the side swipe something around 3 -4 square feet of total opening.
> so what a head-on would have done is speculation, but the bow is made to take stress. i'm sure that there would have been lots of serious injuries and even deaths but look at what the sideswipe did



Mike

I remember speaking to a German metallurgist who said he had read some papers after the titanic was first discovered. Basically the Titanic was constructed before any knowledge of steels performance at low temperature was investigated and that cracks from any impact at 0 centigrade would rupture the vessel. Engineers make calculations on the strength of steel based on the yield and ultimate tensile strength but steel has other properties especially at low and high temperature. Steels at low temperature can crack under very low loads especially impact loads. 

This was not properly investigated until the liberty ships started falling apart, part of the problem was 
S.A.W. welding but also the quality of steel was important. From this the Charpy, Drop Weight Tear Test (Battelle) and later the Crack Tip Opening Displacement tests were developed. The charpy was long before but wasnt used to test for these properties.

Since nobody knows what the quality of steel used was people can only surmise what happened at the time of impact. If you look at the photo of the Olympique it has broken like glass compared to a WWII battleship.


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## mikewint (Sep 24, 2010)

TailEnd, in 1996 steel plate from the titanic was recovered and sent to the U of Mo for analysis and testing. in addition steel from the Chittenden lock gate, built at the same time as titanic was also tested. these were plain carbon ship plate and standard during this era. titanics plates were 6ft wide by 30 to 36ft long held together by two to four rows of mild steel rivets. the Siemens-Martin steel used was madein open hearh acid lined furnaces which contributed to is high sulfur, oxygen, and phosphorus content. the presence of these three elements raises the malleable-brittle transition temperature to 33 degrees. the temp at the time of sinking was 28 degrees. yet it was the mild-steel rivets that popped opening seams rathar than cracking plates. titanics fatal flaw was its poor quality rivets
somewhat the same thing happened to olympia. look at that hole! and she survived to sail home unasisted. Titanics "hole" was 3 - 4 square feet but in the form of long gashes since the plates were 30 -36 feet long


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## Ferdinand Foch (Sep 26, 2010)

Hey, thanks Colin. That was an interesting article. Where did you find it?


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## tail end charlie (Sep 26, 2010)

mikewint said:


> TailEnd, in 1996 steel plate from the titanic was recovered and sent to the U of Mo for analysis and testing. in addition steel from the Chittenden lock gate, built at the same time as titanic was also tested. these were plain carbon ship plate and standard during this era. titanics plates were 6ft wide by 30 to 36ft long held together by two to four rows of mild steel rivets. the Siemens-Martin steel used was madein open hearh acid lined furnaces which contributed to is high sulfur, oxygen, and phosphorus content. the presence of these three elements raises the malleable-brittle transition temperature to 33 degrees. the temp at the time of sinking was 28 degrees. yet it was the mild-steel rivets that popped opening seams rathar than cracking plates. titanics fatal flaw was its poor quality rivets
> somewhat the same thing happened to olympia. look at that hole! and she survived to sail home unasisted. Titanics "hole" was 3 - 4 square feet but in the form of long gashes since the plates were 30 -36 feet long





Mike sorry i missed this reply, it was 1998 I was working with Germany discussing this ( BTW I presume you are using farenheit).

If you look at the Olympic part of the fracture is along joints and part is at a diagonal, the diagonal fractures (across the plate) look like typical brittle fractures to me . Also with regard to these diagonal fractures they "cross" the riveted plate joints but the longitudinal riveted plates remain joined. Similarly with the picture of the Titanic fracture the rivets have ruptured for sure but also there is a diagonal fracture at the lower part of the picture. The riveted joint is naturally weaker than the surrounding steel. It may well be that the rivets were for a large part to blame but it is the same problem, people hadnt investigated temperature transition curves on steel plates or rivets at the time.
Even now the top guys I meet in steelmaking debate about the value of low temperature impact test results.

PS you can estimate the transition temperature of a steel from the chemical analysis but nothing more. While working in Russia identical steels (on chemical analysis) could produce values from 100% to 0% brittle fracture on a Drop Weight Tear Test (Battelle test). That was in 2006 steel making may be a bit dodgy in Russia but they have learned a lot since the times of the Titanic and still have basic QA/QC problems and that is when they know what the problem is. 

Until the construction of the liberty ships hit problems this phenomena was not really investigated, indeed in the UK the problem of the Liberty ships gave rise to "The Welding Institute" (to investigate SAW welding etc) and similar developments in the U.S.A. I quoted DWTT (drop weight tear test) which is the modern name but as a trainee this was always referred to as a "Battelle" which is the the name of American institute that developed the test during WWII. I dont know what you call it nowadays in the USA. but in any case it is being superceded by CTOD (Crack Tip Opening Displacement) testing...which is another black art.

This is not to invalidate or argue with anything you have quoted, just another point of view, in metallurgy there is always another point of view lol.


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## RabidAlien (Sep 26, 2010)

Great. I'm gonna have nightmares about BFPL curves tonight. Thanks, guys. <<sobs>>

One thing I remember from our endless semi-annual Brittle Fracture training, they always threw up photos of the USS Schenectady, which split in half while sitting at the pier in California (San Diego?). Pretty dramatic example, actually.

http://web.mse.uiuc.edu/courses/mse280/notes/09/ch09_fracture.pdf


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## Colin1 (Sep 27, 2010)

Ferdinand Foch said:


> Hey, thanks Colin. That was an interesting article. Where did you find it?


lol I can't remember now
I'll see if I can recall where it came from


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## tail end charlie (Sep 27, 2010)

RabidAlien said:


> Great. I'm gonna have nightmares about BFPL curves tonight. Thanks, guys. <<sobs>>
> 
> One thing I remember from our endless semi-annual Brittle Fracture training, they always threw up photos of the USS Schenectady, which split in half while sitting at the pier in California (San Diego?). Pretty dramatic example, actually.
> http://web.mse.uiuc.edu/courses/mse280/notes/09/ch09_fracture.pdf



It says in the text that the investigation showed the welds to be faulty.....Welds and a few other things I would say.


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## mikewint (Sep 27, 2010)

The steel composition from titanic showed the high levels of phosphorus, oxygen and sulfur plus low (by today's standards) levels of manganese all contributors to making the steel brittle at low temps. water temp was 28 F or -2 C.
yet the steel never actually cracked, plates opened along a discontinuous gash of about 100m. once boiler room 5 opened titanic was doomed.
Charpy tests showed the brittle transition temp for ASTN A36 steel to be -27 C while titanic steel (longitudinal) 32 C and (traverse) 56 C
titanic's steel was totally unsuited to the cold of the N Atlantic and by today's standards totally unsuited for any construction especially ship hulls


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