The installation of the Liesure Furl on our boat mirrors your experience, Jon. The controls are on the bulkhead next to the companionway under the dodger. Anyone less than my 6'3" couldn't reach the controls while looking up over the dodger and I had to stretch. We also have an electric windlass with a wired hand control. My reasoning was that we don't need the hand control at the windlass when we aren't anchoring or visa versa, so I wired another socket for the hand control into the cockpit further aft and use that while sitting or standing aft of the dodger while furling/un-furling the main. It gives me the 6 or 8 feet of the cord to move around. That's worked very well for 10 years, although last year I bought another hand control so that we have spares for either or if we want to sail into an anchorage we could. I also have a mark on the Boom Lift line that I set at its' clutch before beginning to un-furl or furl, it keeps the boom at the right angle during the operation.