Giant Pumpkin Kayaking

The giant gourds used for kayaking are 800+ pounds of pumpkin. That is about 8 times the average weight of middle school students! They are usually 13-14 feet or even bigger! Imagine having to cut open and hollow out that big pumpkin to race in or to kayak in for days straight! The insides, though, are used for a different purpose. The insides are usually made into pumpkin soup for both the onlookers and the racers.

Duane Hanson, another record-breaking pumpkin kayaker, said, “It was like sitting in a giant, hollowed-out cork – every move I made caused Berta to tilt, so I had to lean the other way to get her back on an even keel.” ‘Berta’ is what he named his 846-pound pumpkin. He paid thousands of dollars to try to get a pumpkin that big, but until Berta, they only got 400-pound pumpkins, which are also huge, but not big enough, and gave them to neighbors for Halloween. Just think of the jack-o-lantern you could make from that!