Rigging Girl

Career

Qualifications

3+ years in experience sewing canvass

Career Progression

A rigging girl can progress to being Chief Rigger

Payment & Reimbursement

Rigging girls are paid roughly 12 shillings an hour, but are usually paid a lump sum for the course of their voyage. Half of their payment is given to them by the Chief Steward when they moor at their destination, and they collect the other half from the purser's window when they return. Rigging girls are provided free room and board while aboard the ship.

Other Benefits

Rigging girls are independent of their families, and as many of their songs note, becoming one is an easy way to skip out on an unappealing engagement.

Perception

Purpose

Rigging girls are manual labour, but like everything aboard an airship crew, takes no small amount of skill. They are a necessary part of airship maintenance and function.

Social Status

Rigging girls - being that it is an almost exclusively female profession - are stereotyped to be a drunk, reckless, and lady-loving group that scorn all men and responsibility. Many ladies who practice the finer sewing arts, such as embroidery or cross-stitch, see rigging girls as a group perverting their beautiful skills. But, despite all that, many a delicate lady has admitted the group has a certain roguish charm, with their work-calloused hands and strong arms and wind-tousled hair.

Demographics

Rigging girls are usually aged thirteen to sixteen, since most don't have a chance to grow older, and ladies in their twenties have a wider variety of jobs available to them.

History

The position of a rigger began as soon as they put rigging on boats, but it became an airship position only twenty-odd years ago when airship travel took off. Initially much older people were employed, until they found the group best skilled for canvass sewing were young ladies. Now the very thought of a male rigger causes derision.

Operations

Tools

A rigging girl wears a harness, an air tank and mask for higher altitudes, a sailor's palm, a toolbelt, and goggles.

Materials

In her toolbelt, she carries her canvass patches, her needles, and her thread.

Workplace

In a closed airship, a rigging girl works from the inside of the ship on the axial catwalk, and hanging from the outside of the balloon. In an open-faced airship, a rigging girl works on the outside of the balloon and on the deck of the ship. They dangle above mountains and the open ocean while performing their work, and boast they see the most spectacular views of the world.

Provided Services

A rigging girl checks and maintains an airship's exterior balloon and interior gas cells daily. Many of them also double as seamstresses aboard their ship, keeping uniforms in repair for extra pay.

Dangers & Hazards

A rigging girl faces many hazards. She faces the typical hazards of working on an airship (explosion and death by firey crash), but she also faces many unique to her profession. Her harness could fail and she could fall off the airship to her death. She could become strangled in her harness or rigging. At a high enough altitude, she could suffer from altitude sickness or suffocate if her air tank fails. In city environments, rigging girls are often exposed to smoke and smog in a much higher concentration than those on the ground. And of course, there's always what lurks hidden amongst the clouds...

Alternative Names

Rigger, Rigging Monkey, Rope Gals

Type

Transportation

Demand

Rigging girls are a staple of airship travel and necessary on every ship. Like every position aboard an airship, it's always in high demand.

Legality

The position itself is legal, but a distinct lack of child labour laws means that many ships employ children as young as ten to repair their balloons. The age restrictions for a rigging girl are entirely up to the whims of the captain.

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