Owned vessel crossing river for trial (8)
I believe the answer is:
hardship
'trial' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'owned vessel crossing river' is the wordplay.
'owned' becomes 'had' ('have' can be a synonym of 'own').
'vessel' becomes 'ship' (ship is a kind of vessel**).
'crossing' indicates putting letters inside.
'river' becomes 'r'.
'had'+'ship'='hadship'
'hadship' enclosing 'r' is 'HARDSHIP'.
'for' is the link.
(Other definitions for hardship that I've seen before include "Adversity, suffering" , "State of misfortune or affliction" , "Need" , "difficult to take" , "Severe difficulty or suffering" .)