Life in Australia is picking up for Rockal Evans with his switch to tactician starting to pay off.

Evans, who guided 40ft keel boat Soozal to victory in the Pittwater Cup in Sydney this month, is attracting the attention of a number of skippers and boat owners after victory in some big races.

“Success breeds success,” Evans said.

“It’s all going really well. My agent, who places me in different boats and finds me the gigs, is very happy with how I’m performing and I’m getting offers of jobs and paid sailing gigs way more often now.”

It has been only a year since Evans made the switch to tactician, partly because of his desire to do so but partly because of a persistent injury to his back, which has proved hard to shake.

“It’s been a steep learning curve and just being consistent is key,” Evans said.

“I didn’t think I would be improving this fast but I think that’s because I have a good base of understanding tactics from my finn dinghy days. It would be great if I could stay as a tactician as it’s less physical and I’ve had a back injury for the last year and a half that is still lingering around.

"I do enjoy the driving but if I’m driving and tactician that can get a bit much. The tactician role is more what I want to do long term.“

Jumping from boat to boat at one regatta after another can prove difficult with Evans quickly having to get to grips with his vessel and gauge the experience and expertise of the crew to ascertain how much guidance he will need to give.

“It can be challenging at times going from boat to boat, especially if you have new crew and you don’t know what their level is,” Evans said.

“Sometimes I show up and I have a really good crew and I don’t have to oversee them and second guess what they are doing as much, but sometimes the crew is green and it’s really challenging to try to keep my head on tactics and also make sure that everybody is doing their job safely and not getting injured. When I’m driving and being a tactician at the same time then it can be really challenging.”

Evans’s last big win came a couple of weeks ago in the Pittwater Cup and on his first assignment with Soozal. Winner of all three of their races, Evans was forced to step out of his comfort zone as the boat required more electronics than he had become accustomed to,

“This was the first time being a tactician on the boat Soozal and it has all electric winches, so to pull the ropes the crew was just pressing buttons,” Evans said.

“It was unique and it was my first time sailing on a boat with electric winches as a tactician, telling the crew what to do, when to do it and guiding the skipper on the racecourse.

“It’s a lot easier for the crew but if it does go wrong, it goes really wrong because there is a lot of power going to the winches and people’s hands can get stuck if they are not experienced.

“We can also rip the kite and the spinnaker really easy because you can’t feel the load it has on it and you don’t have the feel of it going through the sail.”

The Pittwater Cup features a high level of professional sailor, which made the victory all the more sweet for Evans.

“The standard was pretty high,” he said. “There were three pros on each boat and everybody shows up to this regatta wanting to get a good result as it’s only held once a year.

“It’s one of the main ones in New South Wales and Sydney. There was a good mate of mine, Tom Spithill, who is America’s Cup winner Jimmy Spithill’s brother, so the top four or five boats were of pretty high calibre.

With things going well for Evans it is unlikely he will be seen in Bermuda’s waters this year as his diary continues to fill up quickly in Australia.

“Once a week I am doing corporate sailing with Law Connect so I’m the tactician and teaching corporate people how to sail,” Evans said.

“Every Thursday I race in a 440 in the Twilight Series and then my next big regatta is on Saturday and then from March 23 to 25, I am doing the 5.5 national championships in a three-man keel boat, in which I am doing tactics and main sheet trim.

“I am also doing the Sydney regatta so it’s getting busy and that’s probably because more and more people are seeing my good results and finding out that I can sail.”