261027 Crew Job Descriptions

Crew Job Descriptions — Racing Monohull with Symmetric Spinnaker (5–6 crew)

Synthesis from English, French, German, Spanish and Italian sources reviewed 261027 (web research, ~1 hour). Written for an Olson 30 type boat — masthead rig, ~760 sq ft symmetric kite, light displacement, small cockpit — but the structure is the one used across the J/24, J/105, Navy 44, Half Tonner and cruiser-racer fleets. Direct counterpart to the 2025 Crew Roles note (vault) and the task-writing that note called for.

Key finding up front: every source converges on the same seven functions — Helm, Tactics, Main trim, Headsail/Kite trim, Bow, Mast, Pit. The only real question is how you fold them into five bodies versus six. Seldén’s spinnaker handbook specifically recommends helmsman + four crew for a symmetric kite up to 80 m² (about 860 sq ft — covers our sail), with pole work as the extra burden that makes five the practical minimum and six the comfortable number.

Lineups

Six crew (base state)

Station	Role
Cockpit aft	Helm — steer; mainsheet, traveler, backstay (owns main trim upwind and downwind)
Cockpit aft	Tactician — strategy; works the main through tacks and gybes; downwind: wind, waves, traffic caller (the kite lives at the forward hatch with Bow)
Cockpit fwd, weather+leeward	Trimmer pair — TWO people, two side stations: one trims the new active sheet, one breaks the offloading sheet; roles swap every tack. Downwind: one owns the spinnaker sheet (always the same person), the other the guy — as a team
Mast / pit	Mast — pole work at the gooseneck, twings/downhauls, mast controls; also runs the pit: halyard winch, clutches, drop calls, rope management (the sixth dedicated pit is folded in — see §5)
Foredeck / bow rail	Bow (“Number 1”) — everything forward of the mast, foredeck calls; works the kite at the forward hatch

Five crew (fold, don’t drop)

Same coverage — the Pit is already folded into Mast in the six-person base, so the five-person fold takes one body out of the Trimmer pair (station becomes single-operator: you trim and break your own side, slower and sloppier — the argument for the sixth):

• Mast/Pit: works the mast during maneuvers, then the pit/winches in the forward cockpit. Hoists the jib while Bow handles the kite body.
• Helm keeps the main (standard J/24 five-crew practice — helm steers and mainsheets), freeing the Tactician for full-time strategy: wind and wave calls from behind, traffic, one brain ahead of the boat — the kite stays the Bow’s at the forward hatch.
• Bow is pure foredeck. At heavy-air starts, or with a second sail on the foredeck (heavy-air #3 left up downwind), borrow the Mast person forward.
• Weight note: the Olson’s cockpit is genuinely small (UK Sailmakers: a 155% genoa setup “needed eight crew and the cockpit was too small for them”). Five strong, mobile crew beat six crowded crew on this boat — which is exactly why the Irish moved to a 100% jib and could sail with “one or two fewer.”

The sixth as “free weight”

The Kauai Olson 30 fleet names the sixth seat plainly: helm, trimmer, pit, foredeck, squirrel, rail meat. If your sixth person is not your best sailor, station them as squirrel/rail meat: stuff and pack the kite below on every douse, hike the cockpit corners on every tack, work the barber hauler when told. Not a dummy position — on a ULDB the right bodies in the right corners are half the boat’s performance.

Role cards

1. Helm / Driver

Mission: sail the fastest legal path — and be the throttle, trimming the main from the helming seat upwind and downwind.

• Steer to pointing/pressure targets called by trimmers — do not invent headsail trim.
• Own mainsheet, traveler, backstay; the Tactician takes the main through the maneuvers. Pump the main to lever her flat in downwind overloads (the Aliens technique). Upwind in heavy air: foot, sheets eased, twist on — flat and traveled down is not enough on this boat.
• Set up and execute the start with the tactician; Bow calls the line.
• Bear away onto the reach only on “Ready” from the foredeck when setting; hold the mode the kite trimmer asks for (foot vs pinch is a dialogue).
• Olson heavy-air rule (class association, Aliens): “The driver is at the mercy of the trimmers” — at the first sign of a roundup, wait for pole-back/sheet-ease before fighting it with the rudder; the rudder is not enough on this boat. At a duck-down, the kite rotation (pole forward ~2 feet) flattens the boat, not the tiller.
• On tacks: call “Tacking!”, steer the tack the trimmer called (power vs depth). On gybes: “Gybing!”, control the turn rate so Mast and Bow can work — smooth is fast.
• Extra: helmsman = chief of safety; last to leave the rail in a knock-down risk; in big air keep boat 20° off dead run until planing mode is set.

2. Tactician

Mission: know what the race is doing one minute before it does it — and free the Helm to drive.

• Course, wind shifts, fleet position; communicates to Helm in short sentences, one plan agreed by both. The start is planned before the first gun: favoured end and how much, which side of the first beat, approach and holes — settled with Helm by the 5-minute warning, not improvised in the lull.
• Calls every maneuver: “Set kite after the mark,” “peel to #2,” “gybe in ten.” Bow’s “Ready” is the answer that finalises the timing.
• Works the main through the maneuvers: throw or choke it on gybes (so the rig never backwinds the kite at the worst moment), take the sheet around on tacks when Helm needs the rudder for steering. Helm owns the trim between maneuvers.
• Downwind at six-on-board he is the tank commander minus the kite handling (the J/24 feeds from the companionway; Oh! launches and douses from the forward hatch — that’s the Bow’s): track wind, call puffs and shifts from behind, manage traffic. The guy belongs to the Trimmer pair, not this seat.
• Keeps the sail-choice call (with Helm’s sign-off). Tracks the timer at starts.
• On a ULDB: also the weight coordinator — decides who hikes where on each beat, because lateral weight is rig tune when you have 1,800 lb of keel and no more.

3. Trimmer — the pair (Number 3)

Mission: keep the front sail flying and the boat powered, whatever the point of sail. Two of the six crew staff this station, one per side; the duties below float between them.

• Upwind, the roles swap with every tack: whoever’s side the jib is coming to trims (draws in the new active sheet); the offloading side breaks — releases the loaded sheet from the winch and overhauls it so it runs out freely. Mast and Bow drag the clew around the front of the mast slightly faster than the grind draws, so any restriction in the free-running sheet is found and fixed before it stalls the maneuver.
• Windward mark: as the kite tops out, ease/drop the jib on command (or the sewer drops it below if hanks).
• Downwind with the pole, the pair splits and stays split for the leg: one of the two — always the same one — flies the spinnaker sheet; the other trims the guy, squaring the pole perpendicular to the apparent wind. The two work as a team, in constant dialogue; nobody outside the pair owns either line. Golden rules for the sheet (universal, from Seldén to the Navy 44):
  1. pole ⟂ apparent wind; 2. pole level, clew heights matched; 3. sheet easing until the luff curls, then re-trim — a curled-but-full kite beats a collapsed clean one; 4. the sheet trimmer directs pole height/angle changes.
• The Olson heavy-air law, “wet side eases” (class association): whoever is about to go in the water lets their sheet go. Practice it until it’s reflex.
• Twings/barber haulers: downwind in big air, both sides twinged to damp the kite’s rocking (Aliens’ stabilization trick); use them to stop the pole diving in waves.
• Before each gybe: “Sheet ready!”, then fly the kite through the turn — he keeps the new working side alive while Bow moves the pole.

4. Bow (Number 1 / foredeck)

Mission: everything forward of the mast, safely, on tactician’s clock. The most athletic seat.

• Pre-race: kite packed with head and both clews taped out, sheets/tack/guy rigged and flagged, halyard jumped, pole rigged both jaws, trip line set. Wears the harness for all foredeck work — clip on before the call, not after.
• Start: sits furthest forward on the rail; calls the line (“two lengths… one length… time!”) and watches for starboard-tack traffic; calls the dip in overlaps.
• Upwind: sits forward on the rail as hiking leverage; skirts the genoa on tacks if needed; calls puffs and wave sets from forward visibility.
• Windward mark rounding: opens the forward hatch — the kite lives loose-stuffed in the empty forepeak behind it (no bag) — clips halyard and tack, clew straps delayed until the last moment in heavy air — feet planted clear of the cloth, guiding the sail up cleanly out of the hatch, behind the lifelines, halyard only on his “Ready!”
• Pole work — this is the O30’s real foredeck cost (why 5 crew hurts with a symmetric kite): on the set he lifts the pole to the mast ring; on each gybe: unclip pole from mast, drop the trip, guide the outboard end through the forestay to the new guy (under the bow pulpits, across the boat), and reclip it before calling “Ready — make it!” All of that happens in a moving boat in three seconds. On the leeward douse he releases the pole first and yells “POLE COMING!”
• Douse: works at the forward hatch — grabs the fallen luff/tape, controls the escape, gets the whole sail down through the hatch from a stance in or beside it, sheets and halyard following still attached, tack last; feet off the wet sail, shouts about wraps, hatch shut, then weight OFF the bow immediately after (O30 submarine concern — the fleet’s standard practice is nothing stored in the V-berth and the bow crew moving aft the moment the kite is gone, to stop nosing under on high-speed runs).
• Backup everywhere: after any foredeck job he becomes the second grinder or rail weight.

5. Mast (this station also runs the pit)

Mission: the winch and muscle hub at the base of the rig; connects foredeck and cockpit.

• Every hoist: at the mast pulling/staging the halyard or the sail’s weight until it can be wonched; “HIGH!” / “Made!” calls come from here or the bow — agree which per hoist.
• Pole side at the mast: topping lift and downhaul (tack) tension — keeps the pole end at the right height so Bow isn’t wrestling it; on the gybe he controls the pole end via the trip and takes the mast hook when Bow frees it (Seldén Method 2, sized for exactly this boat: mast-end duties split A/B).
• Runs jib-halyard for hoists and the controlled drop, feeds/clears lines so the foredeck never fights spaghetti.
• Pre-mark: rigs/unrigs the pole on deck, sets twings, pre-sets vang/outhaul/cunningham for the leg.
• And this station runs the pit at six crew (the dedicated sixth-position pitman is folded in): all runs aft of the mast clutched, flaked and ready; winch the last ten feet of every halyard (“jump the halyard”); call the drop sequence (“Ready to drop… DROP… clear!”); own the spinnaker tack-line height at the set (high for deep angles, lower in chop to stabilise — the J/105 rule). Between maneuvers: the idle-time intelligence seat, watching the other boats; cockpit tidiness (aufklaren) is continuous, not a job.

6. Squirrel (shared duty, anchored by Mast)

• Squirrel / sewer (support below — at Oh! the Bow does the hatch work; the squirrel is whoever is free): helps stuff the gathered kite fast and untwisted down into the forepeak (no bag, no turtle — the forepeak is the locker), clew corners presented for the likely next gybe, and stows the jib. On a ULDB this job is the difference between a 15-second drop and a 45-second catastrophe.

The four sequences, called out

Set (windward mark): Tactician calls “Set after the mark” → Mast (at the pit) jumps halyard, Bow rigs pole + clips tack → at the mark: helm bears away to ~135° easing his own main, jib down (Bow at the hatch, Mast controlling the drop from the pit) → Bow “Ready!” → “HOIST!” — Mast pulls to “HIGH!”/“Made!”, sheet trimmer pops the luff with a hard sheet pull, Mast squares the pole on command → settle: pole 90° to apparent wind, clews even, trimmer talking to helm.

Gybe (square, pole-on-top, standard method for O30 air): “Gybe in ten” → sheet trimmer: “Sheet ready!” → the pair reshuffles: the sheet trimmer comes into the cockpit taking both guy and sheet; the guy trimmer breaks the pole down and works from the pit assisting Mast → Tactician takes the boom round (or chokes it in air) → helm turns smoothly → Bow through the foretrip to the new guy (this is the O30 with a symmetric kite: it costs a foredeck trip per gybe — call it deliberately, never under-crewed in big air) → Mast feeds pole via trip line, Bow clips new guy, calls “Ready — GO” → the guy half of the Trimmer pair tensions, the sheet half takes up, helm settles → squirrel clears old-sheet spaghetti. Alternative for chaos-avoidance: the Mexican/leeward-wristpin drop-gybe-set the crew already practices the Spinnaker Pole Orientation note (vault)-style without pole work; keep it as the designated heavy-air gybe.

Douse, windward (normal back-to-beat): Tactician: “Douse at the next puff/top, jib up” → Mast/Bow hoist jib first (halyard made before the kite dies, or the kite collapses into the rig) → sheet trimmer blows the luff to windward, Bow grabs tape, yells “Clear fore!” → Mast (at the pit) lowers halyard in bursts on “Down! Down!”, Bow gathers the kite down through the forward hatch from the hatch itself — last grab is the tack, sheets and halyard after it, hatch shut, then everyone aft off the bow. → “Jib made! Rail!”

Dead-downwind in big air (O30 survival mode, from Aliens): sail 155–160° not 180; #3 jib left up blanketing and stabilizing the kite flow (class-proven wrap-prevention technique); twings both sides snugged; pole slightly over-trimmed for the higher angle; weight on the lee rail mid-ships to kill lee helm (a 200-lb body on the rail fixed what two on the transom could not); “wet side eases” on every sheet; drive the wave faces — head up to bump over the crest, bear off onto the plane on the downslope.

Vocabulary bridge (findings translated)

English	Français	Deutsch	Español
Spinnaker (symmetric)	spi / spinnaker symétrique	Gennaker is asym; symmetric = Spinnaker	spi (simétrico)
Spinnaker pole	tangon	Spinnakerbaum / Spi-Baum	tangón
Guy / sheet	bras / écoute	Schot (vorlee/seetax)	braza / escota
Pit / pitman	le piano	Pitt / Cockpit-Matste	el piano
Bowman / Number 1	le numéro un, équipier de pointe	Vorschoter / Bowman	proel / “punta”
Mastman	(l’homme de) mât / mât	Mastmann	”palo”
Trimmer	embraqueu/r/régleur	Trimmer	trimmer / regulador
Helm	barreur	Steuermann / Skipper	caña / patrón
Tactician	tacticien	Taktiker	táctico
Tackle/hoist	envoyer / hisser	hochsetzen	izar
Douse	affaler	bergen	arriar
Gybe	empanner	Halsen	trasluchar
Tack	virer	Wenden	virar
Halyard	drisse	Fall	driza
Reef	ris	Falte/Reff	rizar
Rail meat / ballast	poids / “monkey”	Ballast / Leichtmann	weight = “burda” (grinder-assist)

French contribution worth keeping: Van Rompay’s Introduction à la voile habitable en régate gives the pit (“le piano”) an explicit intelligence duty — because he isn’t always working, he watches the other boats — formalizing what the J/24 guide calls tank-commander communication. German sources (DOMISPORTS, SUI16 checklist) insist on the Aufklaren discipline: cockpit tidiness is not a job, it’s a continuous background duty of pit and trimmers — a tangle in an Olson cockpit (which has almost none) is a broken maneuver.

Class insights from the Olson 30 and neighbours

• Olson 30 class association (Seattle) — heavy air downwind is the trimmer’s leg, not the helm’s; pole rotation flattens the boat; wet-side-eases; foot upwind with eased sheets instead of grinding the rail under; leave the #3 up DDW in big air (stops wraps); keep the bow light and the V-berth empty.
• UK Sailmakers Ireland (Olson 30 “Jack Sparrow” IRC program) — the big genoa wants 8 crew; the small-jib + tuned symmetric-kite package rated nearly identically and ran with 5–6 in a cockpit that shrinks with every extra body. Downwind in 20+ kt the big-kite Olson “was unbeatable” planing; asymmetrics and added weight made no rating or speed difference on trial certs.
• J/24 (your own note: “we sail the Olson much like a J/24”) — North/Quantum guides publish the canonical 5-crew job split reproduced above; the “tank commander” sits at max beam and is deliberately one of the heaviest; downwind everyone forward and low, trimmer standing, helm to leeward of the traveler — and the J/24 helm himself steers and mainsheets, exactly the split now adopted on Oh!.
• J/105 (Bob Taylor crew guide, 2× North American champion) — the best per-leg, per-role playbook in the language; adopted here: bow checks lazy-sheet lead before every hoist, pit never allows halyard slack above the deck block, halyard released around the winch with one turn not by hand in air.
• Royal Cork (Ireland) cruiser-racer module — the formal “Sewer/squirrel” role and the seven-function taxonomy (Bow/Mast/Pit/Sewer/Trim/Tactics/Helm).
• US Naval Academy 44 guides — pole-setting procedure as an ordered “Ready-report” checklist before the helm says “set the spinnaker” — worth copying verbatim as our pre-hoist protocol.

What I’d decide next (open items)

1. Which gybe method is the default in >12 kt at your club — square pole gybe vs Mexican — and print it as a one-page call-sequence card per role.
2. Whether your 2026 crew list has a natural squirrel or whether rail-meat doubles.
3. A practice agenda from the sequences above: 6 repetitions each of Set, Gybe, Windward douse, DDW-bigin-air mode, logged.

Sources (reviewed 261027)

EN: olson30.org Heavy-Air Tips (John Rahn, Aliens) · Practical Sailor Olson 30 review · Good Old Boat Legendary Olson 30 · UK Sailmakers Updating a Classic Speedster (2020) · North Sails & Quantum J/24 Tuning Guides · J/105 Aegir crew guide (Taylor 2001) · Royal Cork YC crew-roles PDF (Fegan) · USNA Navy 44 spinnaker guides · Canadian Boating/Fogh crew roles · Life of Sailing · Kauai Olson fleet race writeup (holoholokauaiboattours) · l-36 division of labor · Seldén Using a Spinnaker (EN ed.). FR: Seldén Manœuvres de spinnaker (méthode 2 = our rig) · Van Rompay Introduction à la voile habitable en régate · Le Monde 1986 12mJ crew anatomy · FFVoile Osiris (tangon/spi measurements). DE: DOMISPORTS Regattasegeln: Crew-Rollen · segelclub.com Crew-Rollen & Spezialisierungen · SUI16 Positionen-an-Bord checklist (crew roles in German). ES: Neptuno J/105 six-crew roles · NauticalChannel Ocean-Race tripulantes · ESPN America’s Cup role glossary (proa/palo/piano/burda) · Paranauticos symmetric-vs-asymmetric explainer. IT: Giornale della Vela 8 roles for the perfect crew.

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