Jury rig

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Jury rigging (or jerry rigging) refers to makeshift repairs or substitutes, made with only the tools and materials that happen to be on hand.

Contents 1 Nautical use 1.1 Etymology 1.2 Rigging 2 Other forms 3 References 4 See also 4.1 In fiction

[edit] Nautical use

On sailing ships, the jury rig is a replacement mast and yards improvised in case of loss of the original mast.

[edit] Etymology

There are these theories about the origin of the term "jury" in this sense:

• A Latin and Old French root meaning "aid" or "succour".
• "jury-mast" derived from "injury-mast".
• From French du jour = "of the day", thus `temporary'.

[edit] Rigging

While ships typically carried a number of spare parts such as topmasts, the lower masts, at up to one meter in diameter, were too large to carry spares. So a jury mast could be various things. Contemporary drawings and paintings show a wide variety of jury rigs, attesting to the creativity of sailors faced with the need to save their ships. Examples are

• A spare topmast.
• The main boom of a brig.
• To replace the foremast with the mizzenmast: mentioned in W. Brady's The Kedge Anchor (1852),
• The bowsprit set upright and tied to the stump of the real mast.

Traditionally a Jury mast knot provided the anchor points for securing makeshift stays and shrouds to the new mast. Ships always carried a variety of spare sails, so rigging the jury mast once erected was mostly a matter of selecting appropriately sized spares.

Although ships were observed to perform reasonably well under jury rig, the rig was quite a bit weaker than the original, and the ship's first priority was normally to steer for the nearest friendly port and get replacement masts.

[edit] Other forms

The term "jerry-rigged" derives from confusion with "jerry-built", implying shoddy workmanship. ^[1] "Jimmy-rig" has also been used to denote an improvised repair. "Nigger rig," patently offensive, has had usage in the United States as has also an update, "afro engineer", which is equally offensive.

[edit] References

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

[edit] See also

• Sailing ship accidents

[edit] In fiction

• MacGyverisms
• Robinsonade