Hi:
Casey wears her harness under and over her life jacket. She first puts on her harness, then her life jacket over it. She then takes the shoulder straps out the neck hole of the life jacket and down over the outer front of the life jacket, and then clips the straps to the buckle. By wearing her harness this way, she has unobstructed access to her hook.
We have both worn knives for some time while sailing as we know of several instances where sailors got trapped by their gear or loose lines on the boat. I would recommend wearing a knife and using it to free yourself if you ever get caught, rather than trying to remove your trap harness. It is very hard to quickly remove gear when underwater. We have used Myerchin folding knives with sheepsfoot blades in the past. The sheepsfoot design is blunt on the tip so that you can't stab yourself. However, we are looking for serrated edge, sheepsfoot blade, fixed blade knives now. I had experienced cutting away an errant tow line in our rigging when we had a negative event in the Pacific Ocean a couple of years ago. I was amazed at how difficult it was to unfold a knife when you were swimming in cold water with 6 foot waves. I believe that if you were trapped underneath a boat, you would not want to waste time unfolding anything.
WRT to women's harnesses - Casey wears a women's harness built by the Spinnaker Shop, out in California. I don't remember the url for them, but they are easily found and the company is actually named something like "Hi tech sewing". Search under Spinnaker Shop. She likes the harness way better than anything currently out on the market.
-Greg
