of the mast less sail will produce a force pulling the winding bar in a direction up from the deck of the ship while the wind will produce a force pulling the winding bar in a direction toward the front of the ship as such the exemplary embodiment of the present invention provides the integral portion of the end of the crossbars to withstand such pulling forces whereas the latches in the crossbars merely retain the winding bar however the latches may be provided in any position of the crossbar in order to provide numerous winding bar mounting designs deployment of an lta device is not limited to the exemplary embodiment as described above with respect to fig7 11 on the contrary any deployment and corresponding retrieval technique known in the sailing industry may be used a non limiting example of which includes reefing in another exemplary method of using an lta device in accordance with the present invention as a mast less sail for example the combination of element and flexible surface is mounted to the port or starboard side of the vessel in particular one end of the flexible surface is fastened to the vessel non limiting examples of means for fastening may include a plurality of lines and individually controlled winches or any other known spar boom or sail deployment system the other end of the flexible surface is connected to the element as described for example above mounting the lta device along the hull of the ship lowers the applied force.