Rockal Evans’s late decision to take up an invitation to travel to Asia to compete proved to be a wise one as he and his team-mates basked in glory at the Thailand Platu Championship.

The Bermudian sailor was among the crew of British helmsman Colin Simonds’s team that won the 13-race series contested in the Plateau 25 keelboat with a race to spare.

“It felt good to win the regatta after a really long break from high-quality racing,” Evans told The Royal Gazette.

“It was kind of a last-minute decision to go, having been invited three weeks ago by one of my friends I sail professionally with in Sydney. He was looking for someone to do mainsheet and I agreed to come.”

Evans and his team-mates were the most consistent in the range of conditions they encountered having posted twelve top three finishes, including three firsts.

“We had a few breakages in some races, but we recovered well and only finished out of the top four once,” Evans said. “We won the event with one race to spare, so we didn’t have to race the last race.

“The conditions were light to medium winds, flat water, not too much waves, but when the wind was up we were like really fast.

“Conlin is really good at driving, so basically my job was telling him where to go as tactician and help trim the mainsheet and kite.”

Victory was particularly sweet for helmsman Simonds, whose crew also included wife Caroline, as it was his first after many attempts.

“He has been trying to win this event for 15 years. He’s been third a few times, but never first,” Evans said. “He was super excited that we won and was like a kid in a candy store.”

The professional sailor, who now resides Down Under in Sydney, was making his debut in the one-design Plateau 25 and did his homework on the class in the build-up to the regatta hosted by Ocean Marina Jomtien.

“It was my first time in a class I had never seen, so I did some research and saw that it was quite similar to the small keelboats that I normally sail,” Evans said. “The keel on the boat is a lot lighter than normal keelboats, so the boat gets powered up faster.

“I was telling myself, ‘You really need to hike hard on this boat to make it go fast and stay flat’ — and basically that’s what I was doing the whole upwind. I was just calling pressure, telling the crew when to hike, how long the pressure is going to stay in for, and when we were doing that, we were just sailing away from the other boats.

“It was like we had an extra gear — even every time it was above eight knots. It made it kind of easy.”

Malaysian Rolf Heemskerk finished second, four points behind, and Australian Chris Way was third a farther ten points back.