Lively member of the ship's company? (6)
I believe the answer is:
sparks
'lively member of the ship's company?' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.
'lively member of the ship's' is the wordplay.
'lively member of' becomes 'sp' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'the ship's' becomes 'arks' (as in Noah's ark).
'sp'+'arks'='SPARKS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for sparks that I've seen before include "Flashes from electrical discharge" , "Fiery particles emitted by fire" , "Electricians (informal)" , "Electric discharges" , "Electrical discharges" .)