With regard to Prusik knots and clips, David Lennard came up with a system to use the prusik knot but use a short lanyard with a stopper ball on the end of it on your spreader harness. Instead of a clip, you just slip the open loop of the prusik over the stopper ball and put a little tension on it. They stay in place remarkably well and are easy to get out of even under tension.
I used this at Jake's suggestion and it works really well. I tied the stopper ball to the trap ring rather than on my harness then put the ball through the loop of line that was attached to the chicken line by the prusik knot. It kept Robi and I on my boat going through CRAZY chop at the entrance to Pensacola channel. (This was nice because my wife was sailing on a tri at the same time and said she saw a couple sharks in the water.)
I thought about using two balls attached to a fore and aft knot but tried just one and it certainly works well enough.
