The first person coming to ship creates confusion (4)
I believe the answer is:
mess
'confusion' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'the first person coming to ship' is the wordplay.
'the first person' becomes 'me' (first-person pronoun**).
'coming to' says to put letters next to each other.
'ship' becomes 'ss'.
'me'+'ss'='MESS'
'creates' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for mess that I've seen before include "Communal dining room" , "Canteen - litter" , "Where men might eat" , "hash" , "Dirty or untidy state" .)