This rubber duck is way too big for a bathtub, and soon you will be able to see it in Maryland.
The 61-foot-tall rubber duck, which is named “Mama Duck,” will be making its first ever trip to the region in just a few weeks. The duck has never been to Maryland, D.C. or Virginia.
It will be in Southern Maryland in Leonardtown from Aug. 4-6, and in Crisfield on Maryland’s Eastern Shore from Aug. 11-13.
“It surprisingly packs up very tightly,” said Craig Samborski, the owner of the duck. “It travels in a very large cargo trailer.”
Mama Duck is believed to be the largest rubber duck in the world, although it is not officially listed in the Guinness World Records.
“Nobody’s challenged me on the fact that it’s the largest,” Samborski said. “There’s not a lot of competition.”
The duck weighs nearly 8,000 pounds.
“We attach it to concrete ballasts that keep it from blowing away,” Samborski said. “It has 16 different tethering points around it.”
Samborski said the duck is inflated by hooking up “high-intensity blowers” to it and “let it rip.”
“About 40 minutes later, there’s a giant duck there,” Samborski said.
Samborski, who has a background in event planning, decided to have the duck built in 2014 as a way to entertain people in a unique way.
His mission has been a success.
“I didn’t know what I was getting into when I built this,” Samborski said. “There are so many people in the world that love rubber ducks. That’s my biggest thing why I love doing this is because it makes people so happy.”
Those who want to see the duck when it arrives in Maryland should expect lots of other interested viewers.
When the duck flew north to Canada in 2017, Samborski said it drew just under a million people in Toronto over a period of four days.
“I’ve never seen a mass of humanity like that,” said Samborski. “Usually wherever we go, we have big crowds.”
