Fortune Favors the Buoyant: The 2026 Pumpkin Regatta, From the Wall

On Sunday, October 18, I spent the afternoon pressed against the wall of the Lake of the Commons in Tualatin, watching adults race thousand-pound pumpkins across a lake. Nobody around me found this unusual. By the fifth race, neither did I.

How a pumpkin became a boat

The regatta started in 2004, and like a lot of good ideas, it started with a “no.” Ron Wilson, a giant pumpkin grower, asked to float pumpkins on a lake in Rainier, Oregon. Rainier passed. Tualatin didn’t.

Wilson and Jim Sherwood, a founder of the Pacific Giant Vegetable Growers, borrowed the idea from the Windsor Pumpkin Regatta in Nova Scotia, which had been at it since 1999. Sherwood had been looking for something to do with competition pumpkins once the weigh-ins were over. The answer, it turns out, was to sit in them.

That first year drew a handful of pumpkins and a few dozen onlookers. By 2007 the crowd was around 2,000. These days estimates run between 15,000 and 20,000 people, some from as far off as Canada.

The mechanics are simple and slightly absurd. Local growers raise pumpkins that push 1,000 pounds. A forklift sets them in the water, they’re hollowed out, and a paddler in a family-friendly costume climbs in. The course runs about a quarter mile around the lake. Five heats fill the afternoon, split among growers, sponsors, local officials and members of the public picked by lottery.

This year’s theme was “Tattoo Couture – Fortune Favors the Brave,” with a poster by Tualatin artist Brenna White. Ravens, serpents, black cats and a jester. Fitting, since every paddler is essentially betting a pumpkin won’t betray them.

The view from the wall

I caught the last two of the day’s five races from the lake wall, which is a polite way of saying I was part of the wall. The crowd stood several rows deep behind the railing. Kids rode on shoulders, phones went up at every start, and the front row sat on the ledge with their shoes a few inches above the water.

Before the races, the pumpkins wait in a pool-noodle corral near the shore. They look less like boats and more like something a giant forgot to put away.

Once a heat starts, the lake turns into a slow-motion demolition derby. Nobody around me knew the people in the pumpkins. That didn’t stop anyone from picking a favorite by the first buoy and cheering like they’d grown the pumpkin themselves. The cheering didn’t let up for either race.

My favorite frame of the day came from the fourth race. A paddler in a red pirate bandana had gotten out ahead of a tight cluster of costumed racers, and he was defending that lead the only way you can in a pumpkin: by leaning so far forward for every stroke that the whole boat considered tipping. Each pull was a negotiation between going faster and going swimming. I titled the photo “No Swimming,” which was less a caption than a hope. I don’t know who won the fourth race. I do know he stayed upright long enough for me to get the shot.

Not everyone stayed dry. One racer’s pumpkin took on enough water to go down. Rather than call it a day, they let go of the pumpkin and swam the rest of the course to the finish line. There’s no category for that. There should be.

Across those last two heats, the field included a cow, a mime, a hot dog, an astronaut, an octopus with a full set of tentacles draped over the rim, a gnome and a man in a pickle suit.

The pickle won the fifth race. I have no deeper analysis. Sometimes the pickle wins.

Why this matters if you’re looking at Tualatin

I work in real estate, so you knew this part was coming.

A listing tells you square footage and school boundaries. It can’t tell you what a town does on a Sunday in October. In Tualatin’s case, the answer is that thousands of people walk to a lake in the middle of town and cheer for strangers in vegetables. That tells you more about a place than a feature sheet ever will.

A few things worth knowing if the Commons has your attention:

• It’s a real town center. The lake sits at the middle of the Tualatin Commons, ringed by restaurants, shops and walking paths. Plenty of suburbs have a shopping center. Fewer have a place where the whole town actually gathers.
• The city says yes to good ideas. In 2004 someone pitched floating pumpkins on the town lake, and the city didn’t just allow it, it built a signature event around it. A place’s attitude toward fun usually matches its attitude toward its residents.
• It’s well connected. Tualatin sits in Washington County where I-5 and I-205 meet, between Portland, Lake Oswego, Tigard and Wilsonville. A Portland commute and a small-town Sunday aren’t mutually exclusive here.
• The housing runs a range. You’ll find condos and townhomes close to the Commons, plus established single-family neighborhoods spreading out toward the Tualatin River and its parks.

One piece of advice from someone who photographs houses for a living: if you’re looking at a home within walking distance of the Commons, visit once on a regatta Sunday and once on a regular Tuesday. You’ll learn more from those two visits than from any listing description, including the ones I help write.

The moral of the pumpkin

A pumpkin is a terrible boat. It’s heavy, it’s round, it wants to spin, and it has no interest in going straight. Every paddler on that lake knew it and got in anyway. Then a few thousand neighbors showed up to cheer them through it, including the one who finished the race without a pumpkin at all.

That’s my measure of a good place to live. Not whether everything goes perfectly, but whether people show up for each other when it doesn’t. Tualatin shows up. Sometimes in a pickle suit.

If you’re curious about life near the Commons, or anywhere else in Washington County, the Dill Ward Group would be glad to show you around. We’ll even tell you where to stand next October.

Sources

• West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta – Wikipedia
• City Unveils 2026 West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta Poster – Tualatin Life
• Inside the Giant Pumpkin Regatta of Tualatin, Oregon – National League of Cities