Mast bending dued to big cunningham tension

My dad and I went out sailing our Taipan 5.7 yesterday, and the wind was ON, averaging around 20 knots, probably in the high 20s in the gusts. The Taipan has a very powerful rig (as most of you know), and so we put a lot of downhaull on to tame the beast already before we went out. As we did this, we saw that the top part of the mast (from the spreaders and above) bended, not only backwards towards the stern of the boat as wanted, but also to the sides of the boat. Which side it bended depended on which side the battens were, that is, if the battens (all of them) were bending the way they do on a port tack and thus giving the sail profile, the mast would bend towards port as well. Is this normal? And if not, how do one fix this problem?

And while we are at it, big wind sailing in boats like the Taipan 5.7, how do you do it? Are there any magic tricks besides flattening the sail as much as possible AND having big enough balls?

The way the mast bends with a lot of downhaul/cunningham changes with the prebend (diamond wires), spreader sweep, sheet tension and mast rotation. It's a pretty in depth sort of question and sadly... it's REALLY late here.

The biggest thing for big air is knowing when/how to depower. Certain tricks work better for different winds and sea states. Not to mention, you CAN'T be scared of the wind/boat. You have to suck it up and sail hard. It's easier going when you're on the wire and pushing as opposed to limping along and feathering in the puffs.

The bend you are describing is very pronounced on my 93 Boyer A cat with a very lightweight aluminum wing mast. Makes me nervous on occasion, but it ain't broke yet!

Dave

How much rotation did you have will also promote the problem
When i use to sail on my mates 5.7 we would pull the downhaul until your hand hurt, if you think you have enough it probably isn't
then when it got too much we would then slowly centre the rotation
When the wind was up (say 15+)the sail invert on the top 4 batterns and thats something that looks weird also
We always use to say that the boat would take us for a sail and a lot of the time that was the case, we use to sail it at around 170kgs.
hope this helps Richard