Ah....appreciate your situation!  Do you have Lazy Jacks to hold the spars and sail at working height when you drop the sail?

Assuming that you're using the lug rig (since you mention a yard and not a sprit or gaff), Moonchaser is right, lazy jacks are your friend. When you want the sail down, tighten the lazy jack halyard, then drop the sail onto the boom and tie it up.

I'd also suggest that instead of wrapping the sail, yard and boom with a single bungee that you use sail ties. This lets you get the sail under control in increments, instead of having to hold it until you can get the whole thing under control at once. It's always better to break up a large difficult job into a bunch of little easy ones.

The other advantage of sail ties is that if the furl ends up too messy, you can always undo one tie and fix a portion of the furl, then retie and move to the next tie. This way, the sail stays under control while you're working on it. Also, if something more important comes up, you can stop furling and attend to it knowing that the rest of the ties will hold the sail in place until you get back to it.

There are many different kinds of sail ties out there. I prefer the bungee loops with plastic balls at each end. They're fast to put on, remove and adjust and give you a very secure furl. You can get them at marine supply stores, but I prefer to go to DIY stores where they're called canopy ties and are 1/4 the price.

Have fun,

Laszlo

   Sorry guys but showing my lack of knowledge about the rig. The Skerry has a sprit rig not  lug. The sail is lashed to the mast and boom and the sail is held "out" by the sprit's snotter (love that term). So I cannot drop the sail, can only loosen the snotter and lift the boom. Thinking on it, I could use what would be a topping lift on a sloop, but pull the boom tight to the mast, and then control the chaos of the sprit by carefully backing off the snottor some and trying to pull the sprit to the boom, maybe a second line from sprit to boom. The sail would still look a mess but assuming I'm doing this to get the boom and sail out of the way for rowing and the winds are light, maybe it would work. Any thoughts?