Jury rigging

Model showing a method for jury-rigging a rudder

In maritime transport and sailing, jury rigging or jury-rigging<ref name="Lexico">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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.<ref name=OEDjurymast>Template:Cite book</ref> If necessary, a yard would also be fashioned and stayed to allow a watercraft to resume making way.

Etymology

The Oxford English Dictionary states that jury-mast is "Of unknown origin", adding "Apparently either a corruption of some earlier name, or a jocular appellation invented by sailors. For the suggestion that it may have been short for injury-mast, no supporting evidence has been found." It defines it as "Nautical: A temporary mast put up in place of one that has been broken or carried away." and the earliest citation given is from 1616, with the spelling lury mast.<ref>Template:Cite OED</ref>

The 1881 edition of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable defines Jury Mast as "A corruption of joury mast, i.e. a mast for the day, a temporary mast, being a spar used for the nonce when the mast has been carried away. (French, jour, a day)",<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> but the 1970 Centenary Edition of the same work states that "the etymology of 'jury' here is a matter of surmise".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> A further suggested derivation is from the old French ajurie (aid).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Rigging

Three variations of the jury mast knot.

A sail-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 spar or spinnaker 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 Template:Convert 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.<ref name=Hamel1>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=Hamel2>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=Hamel3>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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.<ref name=Lexico/>

Similar terms

• 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.<ref name="alt.usage.english">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Morris">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Wilton">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The blended terms jerry rigging and jerry-rigged are also common.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Template:AnchorAfro engineering (short for African engineering)<ref name="Cassell's1">Template:Cite book</ref> or nigger-rigging<ref name="Cassell's2">Template:Cite book</ref> is a highly offensive term<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> for 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.<ref name="NPD">Template:Cite book</ref> Nigger-rigging originated in the 1950s United States;<ref name="Cassell's1" /> the term was euphemized as afro engineering in the 1970s<ref name="Cassell's2" /><ref name="Routledge">Template:Cite book</ref> and later again as ghetto rigging. The terms have been used in the U.S. auto mechanic industry to describe quick makeshift repairs.<ref name="Auto Slang">Template:Cite book</ref> These phrases have largely fallen out of common usage due to their highly offensive nature.
• The American expression redneck technology similarly refers to crude forms of technology, often hastily or poorly finished, but broadly functional.<ref>See, e.g.: {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• To MacGyver (or MacGyverize) 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• 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 English term do-it-yourself (DIY) relatedly refers to creating, repairing, or modifying things without professional or expert assistance.
• Similar concepts in other languages include: {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Hindi and {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Urdu, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) in Japanese, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Genoese dialect, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) in Chinese, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in German, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Portuguese and {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Brazilian Portuguese, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Haitian Creole, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in French, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Swahili. Several equivalent terms in South Africa are {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Afrikaans, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Zulu, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Sotho, and {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Tswana.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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See also

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Further reading

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External links

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