KEVELS, taquets, a frame composed of two pieces of timber, whose lower ends rest in a sort of step or foot, nailed to the ship’s side, from whence the upper ends branch outward into arms or horns, serving to belay the great ropes by which the bottoms of the main-sail and fore-sail are extended. These are represented by fig. 3. plate [V].
KEY, quai, a long wharf, usually built of stone, by the side of a harbour or river, and having several store-houses for the convenience of lading and discharging merchant-ships. It is accordingly furnished with posts and rings, whereby they are secured; together with cranes, capsterns, and other engines, to lift the goods into, or out of, the vessels which lie along-side.
Keys, attalons, are also certain sunken rocks, lying near the surface of the water, particularly in the West-Indies.
KINK, a sort of twist or turn in any cable or other rope, occasioned by its being very stiff or close-laid; or by being drawn too hastily out of the roll or tier, when it lies coiled. See the article Coiling.
KNEE, courbe, a crooked piece of timber, having two branches, or arms, and generally used to connect the beams of a ship with her sides or timbers.
The branches of the knees form an angle of greater or smaller extent, according to the mutual situation of the pieces which they are designed to unite. One branch is securely bolted to one of the deck-beams, whilst the other is in the same manner attached to a corresponding timber in the ship’s side, as represented by E in the Midship-Frame, plate [VII].
Besides the great utility of knees in connecting the beams and timbers into one compact frame, they contribute greatly to the strength and solidity of the ship, in the different parts of her frame to which they are bolted, and thereby enable, her, with greater firmness, to resist the effects of a turbulent sea.
In fixing of these pieces, it is occasionally necessary to give an oblique direction to the vertical, or side-branch, in order to avoid the range of an adjacent gun-port, or, because the knee may be so shaped as to require this disposition; it being sometimes difficult to procure so great a variety of knees as may be necessary in the construction of a number of ships of war.
In France, the scarcity of these pieces has obliged their shipwrights frequently to form their knees of iron.
Knees are either said to be lodging or hanging. The former are fixed horizontally in the ship’s frame, having one arm bolted to the beam, and the other across two or three timbers, as represented by F in the Deck, plate [III]. The latter are fixed vertically, as we have described above. See also Building, Deck, and Midship-Frame.