Sense the old spirit at first in rowing crew (8)
I believe the answer is:
eyesight
'sense' is the definition.
(eyesight is a kind of sense)
'the old spirit at first in rowing crew' is the wordplay.
'the old' becomes 'ye' (resembles a historical spelling of 'the').
'at first' indicates taking the first letters.
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'rowing crew' becomes 'eight' (I've seen this before).
The first letter of 'spirit' is 's'.
'ye'+'s'='yes'
'yes' going into 'eight' is 'EYESIGHT'.
(Other definitions for eyesight that I've seen before include "What's needed to see" , "Visual faculty" , "Yes, eight required for vision" , "Seeing faculty" , "Power of seeing" .)