Overwhelming downfall of sailors heading off with an iconic revolutionary (9)
I believe the answer is:
avalanche
'overwhelming downfall' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both related to natural events as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'sailors heading off with an iconic revolutionary' is the wordplay.
'sailors' becomes 'aval' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'heading off' means to remove the first letter.
'with' becomes 'w' (short for with).
'iconic revolutionary' becomes 'che' (I've seen this in another clue).
'w'+'an'+'che'='wanche'
'wanche' with its initial letter taken off is 'anche'.
'aval'+'anche'='AVALANCHE'
'of' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for avalanche that I've seen before include "Slide of large amounts of snow or stone" , "Snow slip" , "flood" , "Rapid movement of a large mass of snow or ice" , "Rock-fall" .)