I'd recommend you try steering with it at full length before you shorten it. From everything I've read the torque you have with a full length emergency tiller is barely adequate. Shortening it at all might make it unusable. If your wheel is like ours was, removing it should be a 30 second or less task. Personally I'd consider that time negligible compared to the time it would take you to realize the steering was broken and dig out the tiller. If you usually sail with crew then one person could be responsible for removing the wheel while the other digs for the tiller.