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Hello,
Regarding your first question, in order to get an accurate idea of what the tension on the backstay pendant is, you need to know the relative strengths of the pendant and the legs, as well as the angle that the legs form at the top. After that it's a matter of vectors, to take into account the force lost to compression.
Put another way, imagine that the legs are vertical, parallel, in line with the pendant, that each leg has a break of 5,000lbs, and that the pendant has a break of 10,000lbs. Since the combined strength of the legs is equal to the strength of the pendant, a load of 10% on each leg would result in 10% on the pendant. But the moment the legs' anchor points move apart, some of their load is siphoned off, going to compressing the deck that is between the legs. And the wider the angle, the greater the siphoning.
Calculating this is a bit more than I'd like to get into here, but you can see the fundamentals in Skene's, the Apprentice, and elsewhere.
Or you can just look at the jib luff when it is loaded, to see if the backstay is accomplishing what it is supposed to.
As for that bend, I don't think that the backstay will have much if any effect on it. It might have been "sailed-in", with the mast assymetrically tuned, then used for a while. Or it might have been that the uppers were too slack and the backstay/jibstay too tight, or everything too tight. Ever-so-slight bending, if it doesn't get worse, might be what you get.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss
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