When Creelman native Tory Allan read the Guinness Book of World Records, one caught his eye and he decided to try and break it: he drove his snowmobile the furthest distance on water.

The previous record, set in June of 2000, was 11.18 miles, so Tory took off from a sand bar at Pelican Point on Last Mountain Lake on Friday morning and drove his snowmobile for a total of 15.7 miles, ending at Rowan's Ravine.

Asked what the secret is to keeping the snow machine from sinking in the water? "Just go real fast," he replied with a chuckle.

"You have to get a good run at it. I was a little nervous about keeping it up. I wasn't too worried about losing the sled, I have a way of retrieving it if it went down," said Allan in an interview on Tuesday.

By his calculation, the snowmobile ran at an average speed of 40 mph, without any problems at any point during the run.

To help record the event for the Guinness Book people, he had a crew from Global TV on hand to videotape the run, plus he used a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) unit, from which he will have a printout to show exactly where he went and the distance travelled. He also had about 25 family and friends on hand to witness the event.

In addition to this, he had to fill out documentation sent him by Guinness to help verify the information they need in order to declare his attempt as an official world record.

Asked what gave him the idea to attempt such a record, he explained he saw an entry for the record in the book; before this, he wasn't aware there was such a record for this feat.

"I rode on water before on my sled; it's fun and it's easy," he said, adding he did not modify or change his sled in any way to make this run. "It was exactly the same as when I ride it in the winter."

Allan doesn't know how long Guinness will take to confirm his record, but said once he has all the information to them, likely by the end of this week, it will be up to them to make that declaration.

"If they don't, I'll find out what information I need and try again next summer," said Allan.