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?