Mary,
There is another potential solution to your problem. Remember, I don't have original ideas. I just steal others and usually make them better, but that is a matter of opinion. On our last boat, n6.0, the previous owner was/is a rigger for Hall Spars and he is an original thinker. He took four small micro blocks; plastic tied them to the beams near the hulls in each of the four corners. Ran a very thin, high-tech line thru the blocks and tied both ends in the center of the cross bar. When on the water, place the tiller extension on the cross bar, move to the front beam, reach just under the front beam and you use the line like a wheel. The one improvement I would have made to this is to cross the line somewhere near the back, so that the line would steer like a tiller instead of a wheel. There is some loss of “feel” with this system and it is about it only drawback.

Having this system can have an effect on your competitors. An A classer who was immediately behind us one evening notice that both of us were sitting in front of the front beam and the tiller was lying on the cross bar. “How are you guys steering that beast?” Our most honest answer was of course: “How else, with crew weight positioning and sail trim!” He jibed away. It wasn’t Lucky Duck, he would have seen thru our ruse.

Crude drawing:
Solid Blue line was the way it was setup; Dashed Blue is the way I would have changed it. Red circles are the micro blocks.

Once I figure out how to attach a simple word drawing, I'll attach it.