So pumpkin growing season is over and you spent all season growing a 900 pound giant pumpkin, so now what do you do with it? Places like Germany, Utah and Oregon have come up with an innovative idea.
Why not carve it out, throw a motor on it or grab some paddles and hold a boat race.
In Oregon the craze started in 2003, the annual regatta pits the regions giant gourd growers against each other in what is a competition of size and speed, and while it sounds both impossible and crazy, it is in fact what the name suggests; it’s a boat race, but the boats are giant pumpkins.
How do they do it?
First, you have to hollow out a 700 lb. pumpkin only days before the race, or it will turn soft and lose seaworthiness. Qualifying size for race eligibility is 600 lbs, but most of the giant pumpkins competing in the regatta weighed in at twice that (the biggest pumpkin was 1408 lbs). They all had to be lifted into the water with the help of a forklift, and many of them were decorated with designs ranging from airplanes to turtles to giant mushrooms – some past favorites include “Freedom”, “Swamp Dog”, and “Blue Streak”. Racers must be physically fit, for a pumpkin doesn’t easily glide through the water. Large round objects aren’t the most cooperative vessels.
So every stroke of the paddle is demanding. Navigating your personal vegetable craft (PVC), as the pumpkins are known, is made harder by more inexperienced paddlers in your way, exhaustion, and the fact that you’re probably laughing the whole way across!
An interesting trend is how boat racing has begun to influence the breeding and growing of pumpkins. James Nienhuis a U. Wisconsin professor of Horticulture has crossed the Atlantic Giant Pumpkin (a racing favorite) with a pink banana squash to improve its shape. Leo Swinimer of Novia Scotia, a champion racer, has developed techniques to coax a better a boat shape out of his giant pumpkins.
This year, the sport of pumpkin boating was taken to a new level when JR Hildebrandt of Nekoosa, Wisconsin paddled 150 miles down the Wisconsin river in a pumpkin over 8 days to raise money for the Tri-City Children’s Dream Foundation. Hildebrandt’s pumpkin was outfitted with a small propane heater and a bailer.
He capsized 5 times during the trip, and ultimately had to switch to a new pumpkin after his first was overtaken with and refused to float. A grower in Stoughton saved the day with a 605 lb replacement for the waterlogged 760 lb pumpkin that started the race. In response to the switch, Hildebrandt reported, “That was like going from driving a Cadillac to driving an Escort.” Clearly, no two pumpkins make boats alike.
