Contribution to wind - something useful around a ship (7)
I believe the answer is:
bassoon
'contribution to wind something' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.
'useful around a ship' is the wordplay.
'useful' becomes 'boon' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'around' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'ship' becomes 'SS' (prefix in ship names eg SS Great Britain).
'a'+'ss'='ass'
'boon' going around 'ass' is 'BASSOON'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bassoon that I've seen before include "wind player" , "Hollow instrument" , "Instrument - no ASBOs (anag)" , "Low wind instrument" , "So-so ban on the instruments" .)