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Jury rigging

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Inmaritime transport and sailing, jury rigging^[1] is making temporary makeshift running repairs with only the tools and materials on board. It originates from sail-powered boats and ships. Jury-rigging can be applied to any part of a ship; be it its super-structure (hull, decks), propulsion systems (mast, sails, rigging, engine, transmission, propeller), or controls (helm, rudder, centreboard, daggerboards, rigging).

Similarly, a jury mast is a replacement mast after a dismasting.^[2] If necessary, a yard would also be fashioned and stayed to allow a watercraft to resume making way.

Rigging[edit]

Asail-powered boat may carry a limited amount of repair materials, from which some form of jury-rig can be fashioned. Additionally, anything salvageable, such as a sparorspinnaker pole, could be adapted to carry a makeshift sail.

Ships typically carried a selection of spare parts such as topmasts. However, due to their much larger size, at up to 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) in diameter, the lower masts were too large to carry as spares. Example jury-rig configurations include:

• A spare topmast
• The main boom of a brig
• Replacing the foremast with the mizzenmast (mentioned in William N. Brady's The Kedge Anchor, or Young Sailors' Assistant, 1852)
• The bowsprit set upright and tied to the stump of the original mast.

The jury mast knot may provide anchor points for securing makeshift stays and shrouds to support a jury mast, although there is differing evidence of the knot's actual historical use.^[3][4][5]

Jury-rigs are not limited to sail-powered boats. Any unpowered watercraft can carry jury sail. A rudder, tiller, or any other component can be jury-rigged by improvising a repair out of materials at hand.^[1]

Similar terms[edit]

• Jerry-built things, which are things 'built unsubstantially of bad materials', has a separate unknown etymology. It is probably linked to earlier pejorative uses of the word jerry, attested as early as 1721, and may have been influenced by jury-rigged.^[6][7][8] The blended terms jerry rigging and jerry-rigged are also common.^[9]
• Afro engineering (short for African engineering)^[10]ornigger-rigging^[11] is a fix that is temporary, done quickly, technically improperly, or without attention to or care for detail. It can also be shoddy, second-rate workmanship, with whatever available materials.^[12] Nigger-rigging originated in the 1950s United States;^[10] the term was euphemizedasafro engineering in the 1970s^[11][13] and later again as ghetto rigging. The terms have been used in the U.S. auto mechanic industry to describe quick makeshift repairs.^[14] These phrases have largely fallen out of common usage due to their colloquial nature, but are occasionally used within the African-American community.^{[15][16][17][18]}
• Another American expression is redneck technology.^[19]
• ToMacGyver (orMacGyverize) something is to rig up something in a hurry using materials at hand, from the title character of the American television show of the same name, who specialized in such improvisation stunts.^[20]
• In New Zealand, having a Number 8 wire mentality means to have the ability to make or repair something using any materials at hand, such as standard farm fencing wire.^[21]
• In British slang, bodge and bodging refer to doing a job serviceably but inelegantly using whatever tools and materials are at hand; the term derives from bodging, for expedient woodturning using unseasoned, green wood (especially branches recently removed from a nearby tree).
• The chiefly American term do-it-yourself (DIY) relatedly refers to creating, repairing, or modifying things without professional or expert assistance.
• Similar concepts in other languages include: jugaad in Hindi and jugaar in Urdu, urawaza (裏技) in Japanese, tapulloinGenoese dialect, tǔ fǎ (土法) in Chinese, Trick 17 in German, desenrascar in Portuguese an gambiarrainBrazilian Portuguese, système D in French, jua kaliinSwahili. Several equivalent terms in South Africa are n boer maak 'n planinAfrikaans, izenzeleinZulu, iketsetseinSotho, and itireleinTswana.^[22]

See also[edit]

• Kludge – Umaintainable solution
• Repurposing – Using object intended for one purpose in alternative way

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Harland, John (1984). Seamanship in the Age of Sail. Naval Institute Press.

External links[edit]

• Media related to Jury rigging at Wikimedia Commons