Ring before work on board ship to get seafood (8)
I believe the answer is:
scallops
'seafood' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'ring before work on board ship' is the wordplay.
'ring' becomes 'call' (synonyms).
'before' says to put letters next to each other.
'work on' becomes 'op' (abbreviation for opus. I am not sure about the 'on' bit.).
'board' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'ship' becomes 'SS' (prefix in ship names eg SS Great Britain).
'call'+'op'='callop'
'callop' placed into 'ss' is 'SCALLOPS'.
'to get' is the link.
(Other definitions for scallops that I've seen before include "Seafood" , "Curves forming a wavy edge" , "Molluscs with wavy-edged shells" , "Tasty shellfish or ornamental curved edgings" , "Semi-circular curves used as ornamental edging - or shellfish" .)