Row by inlet secreting navy base (6)
I believe the answer is:
barney
'row' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'inlet secreting navy base' is the wordplay.
'inlet' becomes 'bay' (I've seen this before).
'secreting' is an insertion indicator (inserted letters are hidden or secreted).
'navy' becomes 'RN' (abbreviation for Royal Navy).
'base' becomes 'e' (Euler's number - base of natural logarithms).
'rn'+'e'='rne'
'bay' going around 'rne' is 'BARNEY'.
'by' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for barney that I've seen before include "Noisy quarrel (informal)" , "Dust-up" .)