The Waikiki Beach Boys has suddenly become the canoe club to beat in the Na 'Ohana O Na Hui Wa'a organization.

Only a few weeks ago, that was unthinkable.

"I really don't know how it got to this," Waikiki Beach Boys head coach Sean Monahan said after the club posted its third straight Hui Wa'a regatta victory yesterday. "I guess we have some motivated paddlers right now. They all see each other working hard and they all want to be a part of this."

Waikiki Beach Boys scored a season-high 70 points to win the Koa Kai Regatta at Ke'ehi Lagoon.

Waikiki Beach Boys has emerged as the top club in Hui Wa'a despite a significant shortage of paddlers. Specifically, the club does not have a youth program.

In terms of number of paddlers, seven clubs in the Hui Wa'a organization are larger than Waikiki Beach Boys.

"To be honest, it was never in my thoughts that we could win regattas," Monahan said. "But we're right there now, and a lot of people in the club are excited."

Kane'ohe, which won the first three regattas of the season, placed second yesterday with 58 points.

Interestingly, both Kane'ohe and Waikiki Beach Boys are in the AA division, which is for medium-sized clubs. No big club from the AAA division has won an overall championship at a Hui Wa'a regatta this season.

Waikiki Beach Boys has been extremely efficient during its recent run, and yesterday was no exception.

The club fielded just 16 crews, and 11 of them won races.

The women of the Waikiki Beach Boys were missing several key paddlers but still managed to turn in its usual dominating performance.

The crew of Julie Aio, Andrea Messer, Kelsa Teeters, Rachel Bruntsch, Jen Polcer and Sue Brown won the coveted women's senior race by a whopping 1 minute, 27 seconds.

But the key to yesterday's victory may have been the performance of the men of Waikiki Beach Boys. They won the novice B, novice A, freshman, sophomore and senior races.

"I started with this club in 2005, and the women had been winning for a couple of years already," said Patrick Switzer, who is now the coach of the open men's program. "We were nothing, not even an afterthought. We pretty much started from scratch, so it's nice to see all the hard work and training pay off like this."

Switzer was also part of the victorious men's senior crew, along with Franco Arango, Dane Keohohou, Patrick Nguyen, Johnny Vervive and Victor Bovino-Agostino.

The overall regatta title was still in doubt late in the day, but Waikiki Beach Boys clinched it by winning the final two races — mixed 40-older and mixed open-6.

"I think a lot of people in this club stepped up in the offseason and trained harder," said Jason Ignacio, a coach of the men's novice B program and a paddler on the victorious mixed open-6 crew. "The women were already doing it for years, and it got contagious with the guys."

Kane'ohe usually scores huge points in the youth races, but managed to win just four youth races yesterday.

"It's not so much us; these other clubs are coming out with strong kids," Kane'ohe head coach Clint Anderson said. "They're getting some firsts, and we're getting seconds and thirds. So many clubs have strong kids now, it's making it harder for us."

'Alapa Hoe, Kamehameha and Kumulokahi-Elks all had strong showings in the youth races yesterday.

During one stretch of the adult races, Waikiki Beach Boys won eight consecutive races, and out-scored Kane'ohe 40-2 in that span.

"Their adult program is just awesome," Anderson said. "The way they were winning was unbelievable. They're going to be tough to beat. They're rolling now."

Manu O Ke Kai won five races and won the AAA division for big clubs with 54 points.

Koa Kai, the host club for the regatta, won five races and scored 52 points to place second in the AAA division.

Kalihi Kai and North Shore scored 15 points each to tie for first place in the A division for small clubs.

The next Hui Wa'a regatta is scheduled for Sunday at Waikiki Beach. That event is considered an exhibition, so not all the clubs are expected to participate.

The next official regatta is the Hui Wa'a championships, July 18 at Ke'ehi Lagoon.