Little craft displayed by chess champ - is he struggling? (8)
I believe the answer is:
dinghies
'little craft displayed' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.
'chess champ is he struggling?' is the wordplay.
'chess champ' becomes 'ding' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'struggling?' is an anagram indicator (the letters struggle or wriggle into a new form).
'is'+'he'='ishe'
'ishe' with letters rearranged gives 'hies'.
'ding'+'hies'='DINGHIES'
'by' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for dinghies that I've seen before include "On the surface, they go along" , "Small open boats" , "Small rowing boats" .)