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Securing this to middle of raft and repairing it (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

affixing

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'repairing it' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.

'securing this to middle of raft' is the wordplay.
'securing' becomes 'fixing' ('fix' can be a synonym of 'secure').
'this to' says to put letters next to each other (I've seen this in other clues).
'middle of' means to look at the middle letters.
The middle letters of 'raft' are 'af'.
'fixing' put after 'af' is 'AFFIXING'.

'and' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for affixing that I've seen before include "Attaching" , "Joining together" .)

I've seen this clue in The Irish Times.
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