I've been researching for a story I'm writing and I have not been able to find this information anywhere. I have several diagrams of the way the sails look and the names of the sails, but I can't find information on how they would adjust it for the weather. I know furling sails is a thing and several other tactics they'd use but nothing on what scenarios they're used in- ie, when a strong storm dissipates, how do they adjust the sails to compensate? And what was the minimum generally needed to do this work, in addition to the other jobs on the ship? I know that Magellan's Victoria returned to Spain with a crew of eighteen, but could it go lower than that? The ships in question I'm researching specifically are a carrack and a fluyt.
As far as I know, carracks did not have reef points on their sails (this was a later invention), and they would only have been able to furl sails completely.
As far as setting sails, it would depend on the number of masts the carrack had. In a strong storm, you'd generally want to take in all the sails except for a very small sail at the foremast, to keep the ship's head before the wind. Once it dropped, you'd set sails according to the prevailing conditions, but it would depend a lot on the number of masts the fictional carrack would have and where it was traveling. Carracks were in service from at least 1300 through 1600, so it depends a lot on the time period.
In terms of crew, you could sail it with only a few men -- probably three or four -- but that would be a ton of work for just those men.