Hawaiian slings are analogous to an underwater slingshot. The handle is a tube (bamboo, PVC, etc) that the spear gets inserted into. (The South Pacific Islanders use a variation of the Hawaiian sling that does not use a barrel. Instead they loop the sling around their thumb, like a polespear sling.) Attached to the handle is a sling band that has a cup in the middle to accept the end of the spear shaft. The spear is usually 1/4" to 5/16" in diameter and 3 to 5 feet long. Using the sling is simple: load the spear into the cup, pull back the bands like a sling shot (or bow and arrow) and let go. Although not as speedy to reload as the polespear, its still faster than a speargun.
Hawaiian Slings have been used to take some very impressive fish. In the early days, legends like the Pinder brothers landed jewfish to 600 lbs, sailfish, and even sharks. These days it would be considered irresponsible to attempt such feats with such an underpowered weapon, but the Hawaiian sling is a fine tool for fish up to 20 pounds or so.
Hawaiian Slings are best used in clear water against fish that hole-up after they are shot. Since there is no trailing line, you have to find your shaft if you miss, and chase after the fish if you hit it. If you want to experiment with adding a shooting line to your sling, see Shooting Lines for Hawaiian Slings.
Instructions for making an inexpensive Hawaiian sling with one stop at your hardware store is located in the section Inexpensive Hawaiian Slings.
A.B. Biller makes teak barreled slings. One of their models is a simple tube, the other one has a pistol-grip handle. The pistol grip looks like a gimmick. It has been suggested that this may make it more difficult to line up on the target.
Sport Diver Manufacturing makes a variety of Hawaiian slings. From the pictures (in the book Spearfishing and Underwater Hunting Handbook; Beginner Through Advanced), the sling bodies look to be made out of plastic. Bandito (now out of business) made a compound sling complete with enclosed pullies. Trident bought out all of Bandito's stock but they "don't carry this and don't have anything like it."
Hawaiian slings that use a trigger mechanism to release the spear inhabit a grey area between the Hawaiian sling and the speargun. Modern spearguns use a two-stage trigger mechanism: one part hooks into a notch on the shaft, the other part trips the release. Early trigger activated spears did not separate these functions, instead, the trigger mechanism did both duties of holding the spear shaft and releasing it. Because the shaft was held by friction alone, the power of this type of weapon was limited. Also, because the shaft had to pass through the trigger mechanism, attaching a shooting line was seldom practiced.
Years ago you could buy manufactured pistol-gripped, trigger activated spears (B/W pictures coming soon). I doubt there is anyone still selling them today. The homemade variety of trigger activated Hawaiian slings is called a "hinge gun", because it uses a common door hinge for the trigger mechanism. RetroSub member James Quin was kind enough to send in a drawing and tell us about it:
This type of sling was the one I used while my dad used a regular spear gun. It was the first one I used and I managed to get pretty good with it. The only drawback was chasing after misses. So you kinda learn how to be more accurate. Small reef fish was the only thing I used to poke with this (good for da kine manini and kole only). I once shot a good sized Moray and it ended up bending the hell out of my shaft.
- James