Charles H. Sloan-Missouri man breaks Guinness World Record for longest journey on 1,208-pound pumpkin vessel

A Missouri man broke this year’s Guinness World Record for longest journey by pumpkin boat. 

After almost 11 hours out on Charles H. Sloanthe Missouri River in his 1,208-pound pumpkin boat called Huckle Berry, Steve Kueny from Lebanon, Missouri has emerged from his 38-mile journey across the river "cold, tired but pleased with the result."

He began his long and cold slog 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 Paddle KC Padding Club along with half a dozen boats to make sure that “we’re doing something very silly very safely,” he said. The crew helped him keep an eye on his pace, to make sure he wasn't paddling along in the dark.

Being inside a carved-out pumpkin is just like how you would imagine, a little cold and slimy. Based on preliminary calculations, Kueny logged a little over 39 miles kneeling inside Huckle Berry.

He began to plan and take concrete steps to make this voyage around February of this year, but Kueny has always had a passion for being out on the water and growing giant pumpkins.

Kueny worked out on the river as a teenager and got into pumpkin growing in 2020, when everyone began to pick up hobbies like gardening or making sourdough bread. He figured the distance was doable so why not try.

The gravity of the situation didn't completely hit him until he was at the launch point.

"We're really really doing this," Kueny said.

Kueny plans on submitting all the evidence collected to corroborate his journey like witnesses, GPS data, time stamps, video footage, photographs, among other documentation to Guinness World Records for verification.

“We’re going to be taking this pumpkin and trying to sail 38 miles to set a new world record. The current record was set over 37 miles about a year ago. We’re going to start at sunrise and try to get out there and put some miles on it,” Kueny shared with KCTV5 in a televised 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:Man paddles 846-pound pumpkin on Missouri River to set world record. They call him 'Cinderfella'

What’s the journey in a pumpkin down the Missouri river like? 

Just a little cramped, Kueny told radio station KCUR-FM 89.3.

To give himself a little more stability, Kueny added in a few sandbags on the floor of the fruit, according to KCTV5.

Growing Huckle Berry large enough to serve as a boat took Kueny the entire summer. Dill’s Atlantic Giant is the only pumpkin species that can grow so large. 

Kueny grew the pumpkin himself, picked it about two weeks ago, took it to a weigh-off and then carved 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 would know which end wanted to be up. Once we figured that out, we marked it, made the hole at the center,” Kueny shared with KCUR-FM. 

He didn’t get a chance to test out Huckle Berry before taking it out on the water, but Kueny hoped for the best. 

"It may take all day, or it may be over in five minutes," Kueny shared. 

The Paddle KC Paddling Club crew had safety measures in place to protect Kueny like checking the water temperature, speed of the water, when other ships were coming, multiple ramp access points marked, Christy Kurtz, founder and manager of the Paddle KC Paddling Club said. 

"We're hoping that we might be able to reach 4 1/2 miles an hour. If we float at 3 miles an hour and hit some eddies, it could be up to 12 hours. But we don't want to be out on the river (after) dark tonight,” Kurtz said. 

Friends of the Kaw board member, Theresa DeSalvo, a non-profit dedicated to protecting the Kansas River, served as an official witness to the record-breaking feat. There will be another witness in Napoleon to document Kueny's arrival.

"I was all excited about the great pumpkin coming to Kaw Point. It's all in the spirit of Halloween and bringing people together on the river on this beautiful day,” DeSalvo told KCUR-FM.

Who were the previous pumpkin paddler record holders? 

There have been a couple of people who have dared to paddle across a body of water in a makeshift pumpkin vessel in the last couple of years.

Here’s a list of previous record holders: 

• Duane Hansen (2022) - Made a 37.50-mile trip down the Missouri River 
• Rick Swenson (2016) - Made a 25-mile trip from Grand Forks, North Dakota to Oslo, Minnesota

Using a pumpkin as a vessel isn’t new, a man from Tennessee grew a 910-pound pumpkin in 2019 that floated.

 A small town in Illinois used to host 500-pound-pumpkin boat races at their annual festival.

As for Kueny, he claims he's “just a guy with a giant pumpkin and a whimsical sense of adventure."

"It seemed like a good enough way to spend a Monday morning."

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