K. The Manx or Gaelic name for mackerel.

BRACKETS. Short crooked timbers resembling knees, fixed in the frame of
a ship's head to support the gratings; they likewise served to support
and ornament the gallery. Also, the two vertical side-pieces of the
carriage of any piece of ordnance, which support it by the trunnions.
Called also cheeks. Also, triangular supports to miscellaneous things.

BRACKISH. Water not fresh; from the Icelandic _breke_, the sea.

BRADS. Small nails.

BRAE. A declivity or precipice.

BRAGGIR. The name given in the Western Islands of Scotland to the broad
leaves growing on the top of the _Alga marina_, or sea-grass.

BRAILS. Ropes passing through leading blocks on the hoops of the
mizen-mast and gaff, and fastened to the outermost leech of the sail, in
different places, to truss it close up as occasion requires; all
trysails and several of the staysails also have brails.

BRAIL UP! The order to pull upon the brails, and thereby spill and haul
in the sail. The mizen, or spanker, or driver, or any of the gaff-sails,
as they may be termed, when brailed up, are deemed furled; unless it
blows hard, when they are farther secured by gaskets.

BRAKE. The handle or lever by which a common ship-pump is usually
worked. It operates by means of two iron bolts, one thrust through the
inner hole of it, which bolted through forms the lever axis in the iron
crutch of the pump, and serves as the fulcrum for the brake, supporting
it between the cheeks. The other bolt connects the extremity of the
brake to the pump-spear, which draws up the spear box or piston, charged
with the water in the tube; derived from _brachium_, an arm or lever.
Also, used to check the speed of machinery by frictional force pressing
on the circumference of the largest wheel acted on by leverage of the
brake.

BRAN, TO. To go on; to lie under a floe edge, in foggy weather, in a
boat in Arctic seas, to watch the approach of whales.

BRANCH. The diploma of those pilots who have passed at the Trinity
House, as competent to navigate vessels in particular places. The word
branch is also metaphorically used for river divergents, but its
application to affluents is improper. Any branch or ramification, as in
estuaries, where they traverse, river-like, miles of territory, in
labyrinthine mazes.

BRANCH-PILOT. One approved by the Trinity House, and holding a branch,
for a particular navigation.

BRAND. The Anglo-Saxon for a burnished sw