On August 27th, a Nebraska man awoke on his 60th birthday with an one objective in mind: to raft the mighty Missouri in a big pumpkin.

This is not the beginning of a collaboration between Roald Dahl and Mark Twain, but rather the Guinness World Record-breaking stunt by Duane Hansen, who made it 41 miles down the Missouri River on an 846-pound pumpkin named the SS Bertha.

Hansen set off from Bellevue on his homemade pumpkin boat and paddled for 12 hours, breaking the world record of 25 miles set in 2016.

Hansen landed in Nebraska City at the 41st mile-marker of the mighty Missouri River to a cold beer, surrounded by ‘tears, shouts, and swollen knees’

When we initially started, it felt like the first five miles were nothing,” Yvone Hansen, Duane’s sister, who arrived from San Diego to complete the paperwork for the formal Guinness World Record attempt, stated. ‘After approximately 18 miles, we started thinking, ‘well, this is a long trip.’’

Sand bars, the wake of passing boats, and rocky shallows were all potential hazards.The pumpkin’s spherical shape in the water meant that it travelled in the same direction as Hansen.

It was a test of balance and discipline, and even waving to onlookers was dangerous.’You have to stay on top of it all the time—all the time,’Hansen told local media.

‘When the boats leave the waves, you have to stop everything and just hold on and ride the waves.’That was terrible.’

Hansen, who has grown pumpkins weighing between 200 and 400 pounds, met the previous world record holder during a huge pumpkin growing class in Portland, Oregon. He made the decision there to give it a shot.

When it became evident that ‘Big Bertha’ was going to give the size Duane required (growing at a rate of 14 pounds per day), he realized his moment had arrived.

He lifted Bertha into a cement pond with a Bobcat to determine the float point, and then he began cutting the cottage into her 146-inch circle.