Jury rigging

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Jury rigging is the use of makeshift repairs or temporary contrivances, made with only the tools and materials that happen to be on hand, originally in a nautical context. On square-rigged sailing ships, a jury rig is a replacement mast and yards (a yard is a spar to which a sail is attached) improvised in case of damage or loss of the original mast.^[1]

Etymology

The phrase "jury rigged" has been in use since at least 1788.^[2] The adjectival use of "jury", in the sense of makeshift or temporary, has been said to date from at least 1616 when it supposedly appeared in John Smith's A Description of New England.^[2] It appeared in Smith's more extensive The General History of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles published in 1624.^[3]

There are several theories about the origin of this usage of "jury":

• From the Latin adjutare ("to aid") via Old French ajurie ("help or relief").^[4]
• A corruption of joury mast—i.e. a mast for the day, a temporary mast, being a spare used when the mast has been carried away. (From French jour, "a day".)^[5]

Rigging

Three variations of the jury mast knot

Ships typically carried a number of spare parts (e.g., items such as topmasts), but the lower masts were too large to carry spares, at up to 1 meter (3 ft 3 in) in diameter. So a jury mast could be various things. Ships usually carried a variety of spare sails so rigging the jury mast, once erected, was mostly a matter of selecting appropriate size. 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. Example jury-rig configurations 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 original mast.

The jury mast knot is often mentioned as a method to provide the anchor points for securing makeshift stays and shrouds to the new mast. However, there is a lack of hard evidence regarding the knot's actual historical use.^[6]

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.

Similar phrases

A model showing a method for jury-rigging a rudder

• The compound words "jerry-built" and "jerry-rigged" have a separate origin and imply shoddy workmanship not necessarily temporary in nature.^{[1][lower-roman 1][lower-roman 2]}
• Afro engineering (short for African engineering)^{[lower-roman 3]} or nigger rigging^{[lower-roman 4]} are pejorative terms for shoddy,^{[lower-roman 5]} second-rate workmanship,^{[lower-roman 6][lower-roman 7]} with whatever materials happen to be available,^{[lower-roman 8]} or to describe a fix that is temporary, done quickly, technically improperly, or without attention to or care for detail.^{[lower-roman 9][lower-roman 10][lower-roman 11]} "Nigger-rigging" originated in the 1950s;^{[lower-roman 3]} the term was euphemized as "afro engineering" in the 1970s.^{[lower-roman 4][lower-roman 10]} The terms have been used in the auto mechanic industry to describe quick makeshift repairs.^{[lower-roman 12]} The terms, especially "nigger rigging", were generally considered both racist and politically incorrect from the late 20th century onwards.^{[lower-roman 13][lower-roman 14]}
• On the North side of the Indiana-Kentucky state line (Ohio River), "bluegrass engineering" is a derogatory reference to rural (hillbilly, Kentuckian) folks keeping something working without proper tools or parts.
• 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).^{[lower-roman 15]}
• To "MacGyver" 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 specialised in such improvisation stunts.

See also

• Bricolage – creations from whatever happens to be available
• Rube Goldberg - an American cartoonist known for drawing complicated machines used for simple purposes
• Jugaad – innovative or simple fixes that may bend certain rules
• Kludge – inelegant solutions that are difficult to maintain
• Repurposing
• Upcycling – the transformation of waste into something usable for environmental preservation
• W. Heath Robinson – a British artist known for drawing complicated machines used for simple purposes
• Exaptation – a shift in the function of a trait during evolution
• Robinsonade – a literary genre named after the novel Robinson Crusoe
• Sailing ship accidents

References

References for similar phrases

Further reading

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