Gargantuan gourds were transformed into sailing squash for the 2025 West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta races in Oregon.
The annual event, which took place Sunday in Tualatin, featured hollowed-out pumpkins being paddled across a lake by people in elaborate costumes.
“It’s kind of a ridiculous idea, which is why it’s so popular,” Heidi Marx, the event’s coordinator, told The Washington Post. “How often can you say that you’ve watched people in costumes paddling thousand-pound pumpkins on a lake?”
Parker Johnson, who dressed as the Very Hungry Caterpillar, took first place in the costume contest.
“I was just chatting with my family in the car. Like, just brainstorming things to do. And my dad thought up the idea of a caterpillar eating its way up out of the pumpkin,” he told KOIN-TV. “I thought that was really fun, so I went with it.”
Jim Sherwood, who co-founded the Pacific Giant Vegetable Growers group in 2001, was inspired to hold the initial West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta in 2004, after learning of a similar event in Canada.
The quarter-mile race takes the form of multiple heats: one for growers, one for event sponsors, one for local officials and two for the public. Participants in the public heats are chosen via a lottery system that begins in September.
Gary Kristensen, who won his heat while dressed as Buddy the Elf, said he has refined his growing process by pressing his pumpkin plants against boards so the resulting gourds will have a more narrow, kayak-like shape. However, he was forced to borrow a pumpkin from a friend this year, as his own plants had fallen victim to a fungal infection.
Other heat winners included racers dressed as Ted Lasso, a Top Gun pilot and a pickle.
