Appraisal of useful quality covering ship and crew (10)
I believe the answer is:
assessment
'appraisal' is the definition.
('assessment' can be a synonym of 'appraisal')
'useful quality covering ship and crew' is the wordplay.
'useful quality' becomes 'asset' (I've seen this before).
'covering' indicates putting letters inside.
'ship' becomes 'ss'.
'and' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'crew' becomes 'men' (I've seen this before).
'ss'+'men'='ssmen'
'asset' placed around 'ssmen' is 'ASSESSMENT'.
'of' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for assessment that I've seen before include "Survey" , "Judgement" , "Examination" , "Evaluation, estimation" , "Appraisal" .)