David Diefenderfer's Inland Odysseys

Forrest Brownell (forrest@slic.com)
Sun, 01 Nov 1998 16:10:59 -0500


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West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
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In a sidebar to an article which first appeared in the old _Small Boat
Journal_ (February/March 1985), Larry Brown noted that, beginning in
1970, David Diefenderfer launched his Potter on a series of "inland
odysseys" exploring the "remote and untraveled waterways of North and
Central America." This tantalizing hint is echoed in the "Abbreviated
History" compiled by International Marine, Inc. and reprinted on the
Potter web-site.

I'd like to know more. Mr. Diefenderfer apparently died before 1985
(at the age of 80), without publishing anything that I've been able to
locate. Can anyone point me toward a source for further information
about Mr. Diefenderfer and his voyages?

And, in a more-or-less related matter, any reader who shares my
interest in small-boat adventures might want to visit Eric Eldrid's
"Eldritch Press" web-pages <http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/index.html>
before they're shut down for good on 11 November. Mr. Eldrid has
scanned a number of out-of-copyright tales by Stevenson, Bishop,
MacGregor and others and made them all available on-line, often with
the original maps and illustrations.

The small boats in question aren't Potters, of course, but the site is
still worth a visit.

Forrest Brownell

South Colton NY
forrest@slic.com