Senior figure in boat group’s upset about failure in race (10)
I believe the answer is:
supercargo
'senior figure in boat' is the definition.
(person representing a ship's owner onboard a ship)
'group's upset about failure in race' is the wordplay.
'upset' indicates anagramming the letters.
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'failure in' indicates anagramming the letters (a broken or failed ordering of the letters).
'groups' is an anagram of 'suprgo'.
'race' is an anagram of 'erca'.
'suprgo' going around 'erca' is 'SUPERCARGO'.
(Other definitions for supercargo that I've seen before include "Owner's representative on merchant ship" , "Merchant navy officer responsible for what a ship is carrying" , "Ship's officer" .)