One thought that I have had would be to cut a small opening in the sail where the lower hook would chafe. This would allow the hook to pass through the sail as the mast rotated. The opening would need to be reinforced around the hole by adding several patches to each side of the sail and/or webbing to transfer the downhaul load without tearing the sail.
Other things to consider- the mast section in the comptip is not constant, meaning that the hook which is designed to be installed at the tip of the mast would likely have to be modified or customized in order to be installed lower on the mast. Also keep in mind that in the normal position, the rivets for the hook go through the hook, through the fiberglass comptip, and through the aluminum mast head casting. The head casting acts as a backing for the rivets. If you mount the hook lower on the mast, you will not have any backing for the rivets inside the mast so there is risk they could pull through the fiberglass.
You could add a pigtail to the ring but then you would have to fully lower the sail anytime you wanted to reef or un-reef.
The other option is to just add a cleat at the bottom of the mast, forget about the hook, and just use the main halyard to support the sail when reefed. The problem is that you will probably get a lot of unwanted mast bend if you do this so getting the downhaul to set properly may be a problem. Still, this may be the simplest solution in the long run.
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