Crossword Genius

Rough, say -- disheartened about sailing boat (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

sketchy

'rough' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'say disheartened about sailing boat' is the wordplay.
'disheartened' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'sailing boat' becomes 'ketch' (I've seen this before).
'say' with its centre taken out is 'sy'.
'sy' going around 'ketch' is 'SKETCHY'.

(Other definitions for sketchy that I've seen before include "first draft" , "Cursory" , "lacking detail" , "Imperfect" , "Incomplete; rough" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
Want a hint initially instead of a full solution? Install my app