On a windy day at Waimanalo Beach, the Lanikai Canoe Club blew away the competition to win another regatta yesterday.

Lanikai scored a season-high 96 points to win the Waimanalo Regatta. It was the fourth regatta of the season for the O'ahu Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association.

Lanikai has won three of the four regattas this season, and 17 of the last 18 OHCRA regattas dating to 2006.

"It was a good day; our kids had an outstanding day," Lanikai head coach Jimmy Bruhn said. "But Kailua made it close. They're a strong club. They're making us wait to the end every week to find out."

Kailua — the only other club to win an OHCRA regatta this year — placed second with 84 points.

"Lanikai has definitely come back stronger than ever," Kailua head coach Kathy Erwin said. "But we were happy with how we did. We were right there."

Lanikai won 12 races, including seven youth races — boys 12, mixed 12, girls 13, boys 13, boys 14, boys 15 and girls 16. What's more, Lanikai got three second-place finishes in the youth races (the top four crews in each race score points).

"That's usually how we win regattas — the kids build up the points at the beginning," said Scott Freitas, who coaches the Lanikai boys program. "Today was really good."

The Lanikai boys 12 crew was especially impressive, winning its 1/4-mile race by seven seconds — which is considered a big margin for that distance.

"Last week, we only won by a half-second, so we wanted to come out on fire," said Alaka'i Freitas, a paddler on the undefeated Lanikai boys 12 crew. "The coaches tell us that every point we can score helps the club, so we try to score as many as we can."

Because of the windy conditions, clubs were allowed to use open steersmen in the youth races for safety reasons. Lanikai has several veteran steersmen, including Scott Freitas and John Foti.

"It's an advantage for a big club like us when it's open steersmen," Freitas said. "But the kids are the ones who are doing the paddling."

Bruhn said the Lanikai paddlers are used to the blustery conditions off Windward O'ahu, and that may have made a difference yesterday.

"Paddling in this type of water probably helped us more than the clubs that practice in the calm water," Bruhn said.

Alaka'i Freitas said paddlers had to stroke "extra hard" to battle the choppy conditions.

"Sometimes when you try to turn, it gets stuck in the water," he said. "But it wasn't that bad. Same like practice."

Lanikai had the big lead after the youth races, but Kailua made it interesting by winning four of the masters races late in the day.

"We got some nice wins, but we had such a slow start," Kailua's Erwin said. "I think we got a little too far behind to catch up."

Lanikai clinched the overall victory by winning the women's open-4 and men's open-4 races.

Outrigger placed third overall with 66 points, and remained undefeated in the prestigious men's senior race.The crew of Kapono Brown, Tapa Worthington, Simeon Ke-Paloma, Michael Kane, Scott Gamble and Jimmy Austin completed the 1 1/2-mile course in 11 minutes, 10.54 seconds to beat Hui Lanakila by six seconds.

Outrigger also scored the most inspiring race win of the day in the men 55-older division.

Prior to the race, the Outrigger crew said a prayer for Joe Perry, who paddles for Waimanalo Canoe Club. Perry was recently diagnosed with cancer.

"We said in these next four minutes, if you think you're hurting, think about what Bruddah Joe is going through," Outrigger paddler Ken Bailey said.

Interesting enough, Outrigger edged Waimanalo to win the race.

Bailey is a cancer survivor himself, and he said the paddling community gave him similar words of encouragement.

"This is a tight-knit group we have in paddling, especially as we get older," Bailey said. "We race each other, then we cry and laugh with each other after. That's how we all know what a great guy Joe is. This is just our small way of stepping up to the plate and letting him know we're thinking of him."

Hui Lanakila continued its domination of the AA division for medium-sized clubs, winning it with 56 points. Runner-up Keahiakahoe scored 24.

Hui Lanakila remained undefeated in the women's senior race with an exciting victory over Outrigger. The crew of Pauahi Ioane, Sara Jane Larkin, Michelle Arnold, Sarah Van De Vanter, Claire Townsend and Lori Nakamura edged Outrigger by four seconds in the 1 1/2-mile course.

Waikiki Surf Club scored eight points to win the A division for small clubs. Host club Waimanalo placed second with five points.

The next OHCRA event is the Walter J. Macfarlane Regatta at Waikiki Beach on July 4.