When you sling you do a lot of moving. ever try slinging from a row boat where you cant do that much moving? Not to mention that your setting down. What kind of style would you use there? Mostlikley the over the head style. shame i cant do that very well. May be you could have your arm raised up a little farther then normal to avoid hitting the water.

any way i would like to know how you would sling while in a small row boat. Boats tend to flip when you stand up so i would like to learn how to sling setting down.


Gun you said that vikings did sling. Did they have a unique looking sling or did it verry little and look no diffrent then the normal sling?

thanks doug

I've been giving this a bit of thought after our "slinging from a kayak" segue and the "shotgun" thread. The always elusive Inuit sling handles suggest at least the possibility that slings were carried in kayaks (not for hunting _from_ the boat though - not many places in the arctic where you have sling-takeable game in/near the water), and giving it some thought I think I can develop more power (awkward as it is) with a sling that with a harpoon. At lower latitudes, ducks would be quite viable game if you had a decent spread shot glans.

Trying it out, you obviously don't have the grunt that you do with firm footing, but you can actually put quite a bit of torso into the throw using the knees to brace. The main problem is sling length. An around the back of the head-up-and-over seems to work pretty well. I can guarantee that all of the other kayakers would be none too happy about the equivalent of a light cruiser  pulling up just outside of thrown object range and openig a bombardment. Of course, since you can't throw and paddle at the same time, 5 strokes and they are outside of range...

Speaking of throwing things while sitting - I brought the piece of insulation foam from the M.G.P. experiments in the other night and have been having great fun embedding playing cards up to 3/4 of an inch deep from across the room while sitting in my computer chair. I never would have thought it possible!

Matthias

Douglas_The_Black, I don't have all that much information other than they used slings. The thing with the Viking is that they had boats you could stand up in and not flip it over. I know they proably had small boats too, but i haven't found any evedience that the vikings used their slings other than warfare. So they proably wouldn't have any need to uses them from a small boat. I am sure the viking ,just like every other humans, experimented with different things, slings inculeded. But like I said their is not very many recorded viking slings in musiums to look at.

Ok thanks gun. and just out of curosity what is every ones favorite sling style? I also wonder if slinging from horse back would be easier then from a boat.

Matthias you have one guy rowing the other slinging who cares about being your own light battel ship when your targets are gulles. haha i could bombard them with my safe none deadly reacreation ammo: eggs.

Vikings (er, we prefer the term Nordic traders) also stood on dry land from time to time.

A possible sling was found in Haithabu/Hedeby. It is a pouch of leather, and has a number of longitudinal slashes in it, with two large holes for tying the cords.
Recently the York Archaeological Trust published a book on leather finds in and around York, which was an important Scandinavian settlement. Many, many slings were found. They are all of leather, pouches only, and often feature a small diamond-shaped cutout in the center.

yes i would also like to see some nordic trader slings.

Cant find a picture? ow thats a shame. I realy wanted to see it.