[jediwhite]

The masts all rotate 180 degrees, +/- 90 degrees from amidships, they could go continuously round and round except for the need to have electrical cables to power and control the sails and lights.
The fore is an exception as it can be 'overrotated' approximately 10 degrees each side to allow us to pick up the port tender and launch on stb side and vice versa.

The sequence for tacking is that we come 'off'the wind a bit to get boat speed up, then start start the tack, turning the bow through the wind.
We hold the fore mast, effectively backing the sail, then as soon as the bow is head to wind we rotate the main and mizzen masts through the wind until they are full and drawing, then we complete the tack by rotating the fore mast to its new postion, and off we go. It can be a bit slow and we always lose boat speed but have never been 'in irons' and rarely use any 'help' from the engines. sometimes we have one running 'just in case' but we pride ourselves on not using it unless absolutely neccessary.

I hope this explains it a bit more