Not many hands on ghost ship? (8,4)

I believe the answer is:

skeleton crew

'not many hands' is the definition.
(hand can mean an employee)

'on ghost ship?' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'on' could be 're' ('on' can be mean 'with reference to') and 're' is located in the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.

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