No the crew is not astern of the helmsman. We never tried this. Seems a little difficult while the crew is handeling the sheet? (don't know if this works out)
But I do understand from the reactions that far back is normal here. (even a little bit further then we did)
But a question which I still have left is: When you are in strong wind, and the boat is constantly lifting (have to give a lot of sheet getting it down) What do you do first? get the boards up, or putting the traveler more out?
If you are reaching, you don't need the boards nearly as much - raise them half way for a reach regardless of power level (unless it's really light). The traveler will probably already be down some - but keep dropping it to try and control power. You still want to try and flatten the mainsail as much as possible with sheet tension.
