Watch chain, conscious it holds front of boat (6)
I believe the answer is:
albert
'watch chain' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'it holds front of boat' is the wordplay.
'it' becomes 'alert' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'holds' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'front of' indicates taking the first letters (the letter at the front of the word).
The initial letter of 'boat' is 'b'.
'alert' placed around 'b' is 'ALBERT'.
'conscious' is the link.
This may not be right. It may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for albert that I've seen before include "London bridge, Memorial" , "Short kind of watch-chain" , "and 7: French missionary" , "Prince with 24" , "Prince of Monaco" .)