An item possibly seen when going round the ship
I believe the answer is:
mainsheet
'an item' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both man-made objects as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'seen when going round the ship' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'when' could be 'e' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'e' is found within the answer.
an anagram of 'the' is 'het' which is present in the remaining letters.
The remaining letters 'mains' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'possibly' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for mainsheet that I've seen before include "Sailors' rope" , "rope found on board" , "Some tackle" , "Crafty line" , "One adjusts canvas" .)