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Landfall   Listen
noun
Landfall  n.  
1.
A sudden transference of property in land by the death of its owner.
2.
(Naut.) Sighting or making land when at sea.
A good landfall (Naut.), the sighting of land in conformity with the navigator's reckoning and expectation.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Landfall" Quotes from Famous Books



... on until Mars filled the viz-screen. It was planned to make at least a half-dozen braking passes around the planet for observational purposes before the actual business of bringing the ship in for landfall began. As expected the atmosphere proved to be thin. The speculated dead-sea areas, oddly enough, turned out to be just that. To the surprise of some, it was soon evident that Mars possessed, or had possessed, a high civilization. ...
— It's a Small Solar System • Allan Howard

... of it, or you would know Anegada," answered Pedro. "Anegada is the most easterly of the Virgin Islands; and my father always endeavours to pick it up on his westerly runs. It makes a good landfall, and enables us to continue the rest of our run with confidence, and to dodge those pestilent cruisers of yours. Anegada once sighted, my father knows every inch of the rest of the way, and could take his ship from thence to Havana blindfold, I ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... the place, as if the heart of turbulence had been broken and its spirit had taken flight. In the southwest, in the faces of the two watchers at the margin of this ruin, a vast dark cloud stood like a landfall rising in the mariner's eye out of the sea. It had been visible since four o'clock, seeming to hesitate as if nature intended again to deny this parched and suffering land the consolation of rain. Now it was rising, already it had overspread the sunset glow, casting a cool shadow full of ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... as a game preserve, fenced and patrolled, between us and the nearest cultivated land—and friends in plenty on the island to keep all our needs supplied—petroleum, fresh vegetables, champagne, all that. Just the same we take no chances—never make our landfall by day, never enter or leave harbour ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... evergreen-crowned coast-line greeted our delighted eyes. A lofty lighthouse on a rocky headland enabled us almost immediately to discover our exact position. We were just a little north of St. John's Harbour, which, being my first landfall across the Atlantic, impressed me as a really marvellous feat; but what was our surprise as we approached the high cliffs which guard the entrance to see dense columns of smoke arising, and to feel the offshore wind grow hotter and hotter ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... three or four. My next question was, how near do you think we may be to Cape Race;—that dangerous headland which pushes its iron-bound unlighted bastions from the shore of Newfoundland far into the Atlantic,—first landfall to the homeward-bound American vessel. We must, said he, by our last observations and reckoning, be within three or four miles of Cape Race. A comparison of these two remarks, under the circumstances in which we were placed at the moment, brought my mind to the conclusion, that it ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett

... Jarvison, watch-officer of the electric cruiser Erebus, reported to his commander that a landfall had been made six points away on the port bow. Captain Laws immediately hastened to the bridge of the vessel and ordered that the engines be stopped and the customary signals shown. But no reply was received to the ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... Landfall and Departure mark the rhythmical swing of a seaman's life and of a ship's career. From land to land is the most concise definition of a ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... wrapping herself in a raccoon coat, made her way to a waiting motor car and said, "Home!" to the chauffeur. He drove her to the Flagg family vault, as Flagg's envious millionaire neighbors called the pile of white marble that topped the highest hill above Greenwich, and which for years had served as a landfall to mariners ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... was the next landfall. Upon reaching that point, we had crossed the Atlantic twice. The course toward Cape Verde Islands had been taken to avail ourselves of a leading wind through the south-east trades, the course from the islands to Frio being southwesterly. This latter stretch was spanned on ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... have been of any use to me, had I found one, unless I had found also a chronometer still keeping time. Charts I did find; but as I had to know my position to get any good from them, and as I would run straight for any land that I sighted without in the least caring on what coast I made my landfall, I left them behind. My only aid to navigation was a compass, that I got from the binnacle of a ship lying near the Ville de Saint Remy; and aboard the same vessel I found a very good spyglass, and gladly brought it along with me because it would add to my chances—should I reach ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier

... leisure for play. During the night they kept watch and watch, of course, but in it all they took no care of the ship, and filth and dirt abounded. If they had anticipated a long cruise things would necessarily have been different, but as they had gone far to the southward now, and might make a landfall at any moment there was no necessity for bothering about mere cleanliness, which, as it is supposed to be next to godliness, was naturally far removed from this band of cut-throats. Morgan had not communicated his ultimate purposes to his men as yet, but as he was the only navigator ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... vessels drawing more than 9 ft., has always been the seat of [v.03 p.0209] government when it was not the headquarters of lawlessness. San Salvador, however, claims historical precedence as the landfall of Columbus on his memorable voyage. Cat Island was long supposed to be the island first reached by Columbus (12th October 1492) and named by him San Salvador. Then the distinction was successively transferred to the neighbouring Watling, Great Turk, and Mariguana; but in 1880 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various



Words linked to "Landfall" :   sea-coast, sighting



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