Man in pumpkin boat paddles his way to world record

TAUNTON, Mass. — Inside a giant pumpkin, with a single paddle, an Easton man set a world record on the Taunton River Saturday.

It takes a giant crane to get the giant pumpkin into the water, which is hollowed out and weigh 1,200 pounds. Todd Sandstrum got in, and set out on the river.

Sandstrum dubbed this the South Shore Great Pumpkin Challenge, or the longest journey in a pumpkin boat paddling.

Sandstrum set his sights on eight miles, from the Taunton Yacht Club in Dighton and Massachusetts to battleship cove in Fall River, Massachusetts.

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"I got to about five miles and my body was just starting to get soft,” said Sandstrum.

He battled the current and tide, hoping to make it. All the work and effort wasn't to prove athleticism, but bring awareness to agriculture.

“It's about getting kids in the dirt, it's about supporting local agriculture,” he told FOX25.

Sandstrum runs a grant program that provides pumpkin seeds to local schools and encourages students to plant and grow.

His hours on the Taunton river record-setting way to reinforce his message.

“No one else will be able to say they took a 1,200 pound pumpkin to the bow of the USS Massachusetts and that's pretty cool,” he said.

He set an unofficial world record last year, paddling 3.5 miles in an 814 pound pumpkin. Unfortunately his camera, which has to record the whole journey, broke halfway through, so it couldn’t be put on the record books.

The world record will stand as the longest journey in a pumpkin boat by paddling.

Cox Media Group