Mainsail backwinding with jib traveled out

Went out yesterday in 16 knots. After a while, it really picked up as a weather front moved through. I later reviewed the readings at our local airport and it showed 23 knots gusting to 30. It was a wild ride, but I felt we were under control for the most part. I noticed during some of the heaviest gusts, that the mainsail was backwinding a lot. It only happened a couple times for probably less than a minute. The mast was not counter-rotating, but there was a huge portion, maybe the front 1/3 or 1/4 of the sail backwinding. Is this something I should have corrected? The jib was already traveled all the way out, but sheeted hard. I had the main traveled out beyond the foot straps, and sheeted hard. I recently adjusted my jib so that the leech and foot were equally tight, as I was having problems earlier in the season with an extremely loose leech. I'm wondering if the combination of the main traveled out so far, in addition to the jib leech being too tight was causing the backwinding, despite being traveled all the way out. We were also moving close hauled during these strong gusts, was too much wind to bear away much. Has anyone else encountered this? Should we have cracked off the jib a bit to open up the slot when this happened? Should I have moved down a hole or two on the jib clew plate? Like I said, we only noticed this happening a couple times when the extreme gusts were hitting us.

Unavoidable in very strong wind, at least to some extent. You have to sheet out/head up to avoid flipping and that will occasionally cause the main to backwind. Make sure the main is downhauled all the way. This will flatten and twist the sail so it dumps power from the top rather than middle. This will let you keep the main traveled in a little closer to centerline. Once you end up traveling way out, the more the sail will backwind, but in some cases this is unavoidable. Easing the jib slightly can also help, but eventually the jib will just become a fluttering backwinded mess. As long as the boat is (relatively) balanced and driving forward, some backwinding of the main is ok.

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Thank you for the info, this helps a lot. We did park once, easing the downhaul, later to realize we forgot to pull it on again, it was possible that the backwinding occurred during this time.