One canoe club from Windward O'ahu made headlines during the week, but another one won the island championship yesterday.

The Kailua Canoe Club quietly emerged with the title yesterday, winning the O'ahu Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association Championship Regatta at Ke'ehi Lagoon.

Kailua amassed 77 points in the 37 races to top a competitive field.

"It's kind of like the tortoise and hare and we're the tortoise," Kailua head coach Jimmy Bruhn said. "Nobody sees us because we don't win a lot of races. But we always hope to be there at the end because of our consistency."

Kailua crews won seven races and had nine second-place finishes (the top four crews in each race score points).

"That's been our goal all year," Kailua women's coach and paddler Carleen Ornellas said. "Even if you're not going to win your race, you still have to go hard to bring in points for the club."

Lanikai, which announced last week that it would not participate in the Aug. 6 state championship regatta at Hanaka'o'o Beach, Maui, placed second yesterday with 68 points.

During the regular season, Lanikai won four regattas to Kailua's one.

"We had no idea this would happen," Ornellas said. "There was all kinds of publicity about Lanikai this week, and we kind of just sat back and hoped for the best for our own club."

Hui Nalu was third with 60 points, Hui Lanakila was fourth with 47 and Outrigger was fifth with 43.

"We just weren't up to the task today," Lanikai head coach Kalani Irvine said. "Our kids did a good job, but we didn't do as well as we expected to in other areas."

Lanikai won a regatta-high nine races, including six of the youth races.

"The day started out good with our kids, but then we kind of dropped off," Irvine said. "Kailua moved some people around, but everybody does that. We tried our best and came up short, so give credit to them."

Kailua's seven race victories were spread throughout the club. Two came in the youth divisions (mixed 12 and boys 13), two came in the novice divisions (women novice B, men novice A), one from the open women (freshman), one from the open men (junior) and one from the masters (women 40).

"This was truly a club effort," Bruhn said. "Our coaches did a bang-up job putting the crews together and the paddlers went out and did their job."

Bruhn said an unexpected victory for Kailua came in the junior men's race.

The crew of Chris Bartels, Vili Malamala, Donovan Leandro, Kevin Thompson, Jason Ignacio and Kawai Mahoe beat Lanikai by seven seconds to win the 1-mile race.

"We know Lanikai's not going to be at states, but we just kind of worry about our own thing," Leandro said. "We did that today and we came out OK."

Kailua also got strong performances from its women's crews. In addition to winning the freshman race, the Kailua women placed second in the junior, senior and open-4 races.

"This shows that it takes every point to win the regatta," Ornellas said. "We didn't win a bunch of races, but we brought in points and in the end, it all added up."

Lanikai won the prestigious men's senior race, completing the 1 1/2-mile course in 10 minutes, 47.12 seconds. Outrigger was second in 10:52.88.

Members of the winning crew were David Daniels, Andrew Penny, Ka'ai Bruhn, John Foti, George Leslie and Jim Foti.

"We didn't win the sophomore and junior races, so we wanted to come back and get this one," steersman Jim Foti said. "It's a chess game, moving guys up and down into different crews and we didn't win as many (races) as we planned, but at least we got the senior race."

The senior race is considered the top division in regatta racing. Lanikai has won the men's senior race in 12 of the past 13 state championship regattas.

"It's a bummer that it's going to end, because we really look forward to defending that title every year," Jim Foti said. "But to take the good out of it, at least we get that weekend off."

Lanikai will not participate in the state regatta because of an ongoing dispute over the legality of its koa canoes.

Hui Lanakila got impressive performances from its women, winning the sophomore, junior and senior races.

Members of the winning women's senior crew were Gail Grabowsky, Deborah Rosenblum, Jane McKee, Arlene Holzman, Jessie Eames and Katie Slocumb. They completed the 1 1/2-mile course in 12:34.00, beating Outrigger by 19 seconds.

Waimanalo won the men's 55 race and finished with 11 total points to win the A Division for smaller clubs. 'Anuenue was second with 10.

Yesterday's regatta was the final chance for OHCRA clubs to earn qualifying points for the Aug. 6 state championship regatta.

Because Lanikai will not participate in the state regatta, all of its slots will be taken by other qualified OHCRA clubs.

"All year long, we try to move paddlers around to qualify as many crews as we can for states," Bruhn said. "So I think we did that, and we got the (O'ahu) championship, too, so it's a great day."

Irvine said: "All we can do now is wish Kailua and all the OHCRA teams luck at the states. Hopefully by us not going, it'll help some of the others."