About 20 people got more excitement than they bargained for during the first Giant Pumpkin Regatta when the pier on which they were standing collapsed.
No one was hurt, and the incident didn’t stop the “pumpkin pilots” from steering their oversized gourds around Lake Mendota.
“No one wanted to go to the hospital or anything,” Memorial Union spokesman Marc Kennedy said. “Mostly they were just startled.”
The event was sponsored by the Union’s Hoofer Sailing Club and organized by horticulture professors Jim Nienhuis and Irwin Goldman. Participants, outfitted with pumpkin helmets, steered a course in hollowed out, 3-foot-wide Atlantic Giant pumpkins, affixed to tractor tires to give them stability.