What is a 'long time' for you in this case, Shel? If refrigerated and completely covered with cold water, I have peeled potatoes well before I cooked them. I do always refrigerate if they will stand more than an hour or two however. In many cases they have been kept cold at least 12 hours (i.e. overnight plus a few hours). I usually (for no really good reason probably) also add a bit of salt to the water when I do that. I have never had 'waterlogged' potatoes emerge - and don't expect that would happen with a waxy potato like a Yukon Gold anyway since they don't even get 'starchy/mealy' during cooking. In fact, though I don't recall doing this, I would bet a Yukon Gold potato would be fine (as I said, if refrigerated and completely water covered) for better than 24 hours prior to cooking. Changing the water every 12 hours or so might help too so no slime develops.
Sorry about your injury. If I were you and couldn't stand or sit long, I might resort to propping myself up on a bed with my legs outstretched and a firm surface (i.e. perhaps a large cutting board) beside me to hold the container with water, etc. and peel away in that position.
On the other hand, if you are making a 'large batch' (how many people will you serve? how many pounds of potatoes do you expect to peel?) of salad, you might also have to cook the potatoes in batches so perhaps you should just peel enough for 1 pot full of potatoes at a time (and maybe even make that pot smaller than you might normally - cook it, refrigerate the cooked ones, start peeling again, etc.).
I do hope you have a large refrigerator because either way you will probably have it full of pots of potatoes either cooked or uncooked or both if you can't manage to prepare the salad from start to finish on the day of the bbq.
