A Missouri man has broken this year’s Guinness World Record for the longest pumpkin boat trip.
After nearly 11 hours on the Missouri River in his 1,208-pound pumpkin boat named Huckle Berry, Steve Kueny of Lebanon, Missouri, has returned from his 38-mile journey across the river “cold, tired, but pleased with the result.”
He began his long, cold march at 7:30 a.m. in Kansas City, Kansas, and arrived in Napoleon, Missouri, at 6:18 p.m., Kueny told USA Today.
Kueny was joined by the Paddle KC Padding Club and a half-dozen boats to ensure “we’re doing something very stupid and very safe,” he said. The crew helped him keep an eye on his pace to make sure he wasn’t paddling in the dark.
Being inside a carved pumpkin is exactly as you’d imagine: a little cold and slimy. According to preliminary calculations, Kueny covered just over 39 miles in the kneeling Huckle Berry.
He started planning this trip and taking concrete steps around February of this year, but Kueny has always had a passion for being on the water and growing giant pumpkins.
As a teenager, Kueny trained on the river and started growing pumpkins in 2020, when everyone started exploring hobbies like gardening or baking sourdough bread. He thought the distance was doable, so why not try it?
The seriousness of the situation only became fully clear to him at the starting point.
“We really, really do this,” Kueny said.
Kueny plans to submit all evidence collected to corroborate his trip, such as witnesses, GPS data, timestamps, video footage, photos and other documentation, to Guinness World Records for verification.
“We’re going to take this pumpkin and try to sail 38 miles to set a new world record. The current record was set about a year ago over 37 miles. We’ll start at sunrise and try to get out there and cover a few kilometers,” Kueny told KCTV5 in a television interview early Monday morning.
Last year, Nebraska man Duane Hansen set the Guinness World Record for pumpkin paddling in his 846-pound pumpkin, breaking every previous record.
ICYMI: A man paddles an 846-pound pumpkin on the Missouri River and sets a world record. They call him “Ashfur”
What’s the journey like in a pumpkin down the Missouri River?
Just a little tight, Kueny told radio station KCUR-FM 89.3.
To give himself a little more stability, Kueny placed a few sandbags at the bottom of the fruit, according to KCTV5.
It took Kueny all summer to grow Huckle Berry large enough to serve as a boat. Dill’s Atlantic Giant is the only type of pumpkin that can grow this large.
Kueny grew the pumpkin himself, picking it about two weeks ago, having it weighed and then cutting it up over the weekend. It took him about 45 minutes to scoop out all the seeds.
“We test-floated it before we carved it so we knew which end should be on top. Once we figured that out, we marked it and made the hole in the middle,” Kueny told KCUR-FM.
He didn’t get a chance to try Huckle Berry before hitting the water, but Kueny hoped for the best.
“It can last all day or be over in five minutes,” Kueny shared.
The Paddle KC Paddling Club crew took safety measures to protect Kueny, such as checking the water temperature and speed when other vessels came, as well as having several marked ramp access points, said Christy Kurtz, founder and manager of the Paddle KC Paddling Club.
“We’re hoping we can get to 4 1/2 miles per hour. If we were floating at 3 miles per hour and encountered some vortices, it could take up to 12 hours. But we don’t want to be out on the river tonight (after) dark,” Kurtz said.
Theresa DeSalvo, board member of Friends of the Kaw, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the Kansas River, served as an official witness to the record-breaking feat. With Napoleon there will be another witness who documents Kueny’s arrival.
“I was really excited about the amazing pumpkin coming to Kaw Point. It’s very much in the spirit of Halloween and brings people together on this beautiful day on the river,” DeSalvo told KCUR-FM.
Who were the previous pumpkin paddling record holders?
There have been a few people in recent years who have dared to paddle across a body of water in a makeshift pumpkin boat.
Here is a list of the previous record holders:
- Duane Hansen (2022) – Took a 37.50 mile trip down the Missouri River
- Rick Swenson (2016) – Took a 25 mile trip from Grand Forks, North Dakota to Oslo, Minnesota
Using a pumpkin as a vessel is nothing new, a Tennessee man grew a 910-pound pumpkin that floated in 2019.
A small town in Illinois used to host 500-pound pumpkin boat races as part of their annual festival.
Kueny claims he’s “just a guy with a giant pumpkin and a whimsical sense of adventure.”
“It seemed like a good way to spend a Monday morning.”
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