Three goddesses maintaining equipment in ships (8)
I believe the answer is:
frigates
'ships' is the definition.
(frigate is a kind of ship)
'three goddesses maintaining equipment' is the wordplay.
'three goddesses' becomes 'fates' (I've seen this before. I am not sure about the 'three' bit.).
'maintaining' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'equipment' becomes 'rig' (rig is a kind of equipment).
'fates' enclosing 'rig' is 'FRIGATES'.
'in' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for frigates that I've seen before include "Ships" , "Class of warships" , "boats" .)