A Missouri man broke the Guinness World Record for longest pumpkin boat trip this year.
After sailing the Missouri River for about 11 hours in a 1,208-pound pumpkin boat called the Huckleberry, Steve Kueney, of Lebanon, Missouri, said he was “cold and tired but tired” after emerging from the 38-mile journey across the river. I’m satisfied with the result.”
He started his long, cold job at 7:30 a.m. in Kansas City, Kansas, and arrived in Napoleon, Missouri, at 6:18 p.m., Kueney told USA Today.
Kueny joined Paddle KC Padding Club and six boats to make sure “we’re doing something very stupid very safely,” he said. The crew helped keep an eye on his pace to make sure he wasn’t paddling in the dark.
When you step inside the hollowed-out pumpkin, it’s a little cold and slimy, just as you’d expect. Based on preliminary calculations, Kueny hackles in his belly and he clocked just over 59 miles.
Although he started planning this voyage and taking concrete steps around February of this year, Kueny always had a passion for going out to sea and growing giant pumpkins.
Kueny used to exercise in rivers as a teenager and became interested in pumpkin farming in 2020. At that time, everyone was picking up hobbies like gardening and making sourdough bread. He thought it was doable at this distance, so why not give it a try?
He did not fully understand the gravity of the situation until he reached the starting point.
“We’re really serious about it,” Kueny said.
Kueny will submit all the evidence he has collected to support his journey, including eyewitnesses, GPS data, time stamps, video footage and photographs, to Guinness World Records for verification.
“We’re going to take this pumpkin and sail 38 miles to set a new world record. The current record was set about a year ago at over 37 miles. We’ll start at sunrise and sail there. I’m going to try to get out there and run some miles,” Kueny told KCTV5 in a television interview early Monday morning.
Last year, Nebraska man Duane Hansen set the Guinness World Record for pumpkin rowing with an 846-pound pumpkin, breaking all previous records.
Eye stain:A man sets a world record by rowing an 846-pound pumpkin down the Missouri River.they call him “Cinderella”
What’s it like to travel down the Missouri River on a pumpkin?
It was a little cramped, Kueny told radio station KCUR-FM 89.3.
According to KCTV5, Kuenyi added some sandbags to the fruit bed to make it a little more stable.
It took Kueny all summer to grow the huckleberry plant large enough to use as a boat. Dill’s Atlantic Giant is the only pumpkin species that can grow this large.
Kueny grew the pumpkins himself, harvested them about two weeks ago, weighed them, and carved them over the weekend. It took about 45 minutes to scoop out all the seeds.
“Before we carved it, we test-floated it to see which end we wanted to be on top. Once we knew that, we marked it and drilled a hole in the center,” Kueny told KCUR-FM.
Although he didn’t have a chance to test Huckleberry before putting it on the water, Kueny did his best.
“It could take all day, or it could take five minutes,” Kueny said.
Paddle KC Paddling Club’s crew uses multiple ramp access points to check the water temperature, current speed and when other boats are coming, said Christy Kurtz, founder and manager of Paddle KC Paddling Club. He said he had taken safety measures to protect Kuenyi, such as marking him. .
“We’re hopeful that we might be able to reach 4 1/2 miles per hour. If we surface at 3 miles per hour and hit the vortex, it could take up to 12 hours. I don’t want to be out on the river tonight (after dark),” Kurtz said.
Friends of Cow Board member Teresa DeSalvo, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the Kansas River, served as official witnesses to this record-breaking feat. Napoleon would have another witness to record Queny’s arrival.
“We were so excited about the big pumpkin coming to Coe Point. It’s all in the spirit of Halloween and drawing people to the river on this beautiful day,” DeSalvo told KCUR-FM.
Who is the previous pumpkin rowing record holder?
In recent years, several people have dared to paddle across the waters in makeshift pumpkin boats.
Here is a list of previous record holders:
- Duane Hansen (2022) – Traveled 57.50 miles down the Missouri River
- Rick Swenson (2016) – Traveled 40 miles from Grand Forks, North Dakota to Oslo, Minnesota
Using pumpkins as containers is nothing new; in 2019, a Tennessee man grew a 910-pound pumpkin that floats on water.
A small town in Illinois was holding a 500-pound pumpkin boat race at its annual festival.
As for Quenie, he claims to be “just a guy with a giant pumpkin and a quirky sense of adventure.”
“I thought it was a good enough way to spend a Monday morning.”
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