Navigator in five ice-bound vessels heading west (8)
I believe the answer is:
vespucci
'navigator' is the definition.
(I know that Vespucci is a navigator)
'five ice-bound vessels heading west' is the wordplay.
'five' becomes 'V' (Roman numeral).
'bound' means one lot of letters goes inside another (some letters are bound in others).
'vessels' becomes 'cups' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'heading west' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'ice' placed around 'cups' is 'iccupse'.
'iccupse' in reverse letter order is 'espucci'.
'v'+'espucci'='VESPUCCI'
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for vespucci that I've seen before include "Amerigo - - , Florentine explorer" , "America is called after the Florentine navigator" , "Amerigo -, fifteenth to sixteenth century explorer" , "Amerigo ___, navigator after whom America was named?" , "America was named after this explorer" .)