It’s official: Gary Kristensen now holds the world record for the longest journey by pumpkin boat.
Kristensen, who is a West Coast Pumpkin Regatta regular and a member of the Pacific Giant Vegetable Growers, paddled 45.67 miles on the Columbia River last month in a pumpkin he grew and dubbed ‘Punky Loafster.”
The massive pumpkin weighed 1,224 pounds before carving with a circumference of 169 inches. Kristensen eclipsed the previous record (38.4 miles) during a three-leg journey with stops to rest between that spanned more than 34 hours.
He launched just south of the Bonneville dam at 7:21 am Oct. 12 and finished at Langsdorf Landing (Washington) across the river from Sauvie Island at 5:56 pm the next day.
The journey, at times harrowing, took 26 hours of paddling and almost ended less than four hours in, when he nearly capsized in rough waters.
“The wind near Multnomah Falls kicked up to 35 MPH, and the waves were coming over the side of the pumpkin,” he said. “I was paddling in a bowl of pumpkin guts. It took about an hour to get to the shore. Every time I tried to pump the water out of the pumpkin, more would come in. The only way to keep from tipping over was to keep paddling. I thought it was over.”
After waiting out the wind for hours on shore, he launched into the longest leg. In that 16:43 stretch, Kristensen paddled through the night to Portland’s Hayden Island, where he stopped again to rest.
He was accompanied throughout by a friend trailing him on a pontoon boat to document the trip and keep Kristensen safe. Despite the pontoon’s big light catching fire in the night and burning out,
“Rowing through the night was the best,” he said. “There were no boat wakes or winds to deal with…The moon and stars were out, plus we could see lights on both shores.”
During a last rest stop on Portland’s Hayden Island, after nearly 17 hours of continuous rowing, Kristensen -shivering from exertion and cold – slept for just an hour on beech. He woke to find a change in the tide had left Punky Loafter high and dry.
“We spent a few hours digging the pumpkin off the beach, then I paddled another 5 hours and 31 minutes to finish the Langsdorf Landing in Washington.
Kristensen documented the trip with photos, GPS timestamps, and a timelapse video, all used by Guinness World Records to authenticate his win.
