I found this and it will speak to you today about "jury rigging. " That's j-u-r-y rigging, and it has nothing to do with jurisprudence. The term derives from the Latin word, adjutare, meaning to help. A jury rig is any makeshift assemblage of ready-to-hand materials, used to help a ship stay afloat and function as well as she can. In the sea story from Acts, Paul and the crew of that grain freighter he was riding used a jury rig. Those old wooden Aegean freighters had just one sail, made for going with the wind, and when a gale blew, the force at the base of the mast would often split the ship's timbers apart and sink her. So, aboard Paul's ship the crew passed ropes under and entirely around the ship, then drew them tight, to keep the ship together. A simple, but effective jury rig.
Here is my first point about jury rigs: Although sometimes in their ingenuity they are artful, unlike art, they are never ever done for the sheer pleasure of creating. They are concocted in situations of dire crisis as a means to survive.
Point number two: Jury rigs are accomplished by means of a communal, creative process. An example: My father's aircraft carrier, patrolling the South Pacific, took a Japanese torpedo right under the rudders. The ship lost steerage and was taking on water at an alarming rate. Some crew members were busy shoring up the hole with mattresses dragged aft from a sleeping compartment, a technique they had been taught in basic training. The rest were brainstorming with the captain, because more heads are better than one. My father was engineering officer in charge of the ship's laundry. He got the idea of running the ship's laundry pumps backwards, to empty the flooded compartments. Another guy from the deck department suggested that a huge sail be rigged on the superstructure, not to move the ship, but to help keep her on course. Both ideas worked. The carrier stayed afloat, and crept back to port. It was not the triumph of one person. The whole crew had pooled their creative resources. But, you may say: can't one person make a jury rig too? Of course. However, that one person must inevitably draw on knowledge learned from others, like how to tie knots and how to splice line. The rig is never the result of one person's ideas alone, but in fact arises out of a long history of seafaring lore.
Before leaving this point, let me underline again the creative aspect of jury rigging. Jury rigs are rarely transferable from one situation to the next. Each crisis at sea is unique, and thus requires a unique, creative solution.
Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
Cheers, Kevin 
