The Kai 'Oni Canoe Club will probably go unnoticed by most of the other clubs at the Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association State Championship Regatta tomorrow at Hanalei Bay, Kaua'i.

Small clubs like Kai 'Oni tend to get overshadowed by the bigger clubs at "states."

But as long as they get a chance to paddle, that's fine with them.

"We're there, that's all that matters right now," Kai 'Oni head coach Duane Samson said. "We have five crews qualified, and that's a lot more than I dreamed we could have had a couple years ago."

Four years ago, Kai 'Oni nearly disbanded because of a lack of paddlers.

"I was really worried for a while," said Shirley Kalama, whose late husband, Joseph Kalama, founded Kai 'Oni in 1953. "I didn't want to lose the club after all these years, but we almost did."

Kai 'Oni was inactive in the O'ahu Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association in 2002 and '03 due to a lack of membership.

Under OHCRA rules, a club that is inactive for three consecutive years gets cut from the organization.

To avoid extinction, Kai 'Oni came back in 2004 with a minimal number of paddlers. In 2005, Samson took over as head coach and tried to find paddlers anywhere he could.

"My first club when I was 12 was Kai 'Oni," Samson said. "So I wanted to come back and help when I heard they needed help."

In 2005, the club had around 30 paddlers. This year, they have 80.

Most of the paddlers in the club now are in the youngest divisions — 12s, 13s and 14s. There is also an encouraging number of novice adult members.

"We went to the foundation, which is the young kids," Samson said. "We had to build from the bottom, because we knew it would be hard to get adults. So we have a good group of kids now, and some good (adult) novices. That's how we plan to build. Hopefully, all these paddlers stick around."

Kai 'Oni is based at Kailua Beach Park, so it is surrounded by bigger clubs on the Windward O'ahu shores. In fact, neighboring clubs Kailua, Lanikai and Kane'ohe are considered three of the biggest in the state.

"I knew it would be hard to find kids because they all go to Kailua and Lanikai on this side," Samson said. "So I took anybody, basically."

Bryan Domingo, for example, happened to be spending a day with his family at Kailua Beach three years ago when he ran into Samson by chance.

"We were just walking on the beach and he asked if I would be interested in paddling," said Domingo, 13. "I never paddled before that in my life, but now I'm here and it's great."

Another example is 12-year-old Whitney Teramoto. Her mother used to work with Samson.

"I was with my mom and he asked me if I wanted to join the club," Teramoto said. "So one day I just came out and now these are all my friends."

Teramoto also has friends at Kailua Canoe Club, but said she has no desire to move to a bigger club.

"Not to make the big clubs sound bad, but one of my friends at Kailua said a lot of the girls don't even get to race and they just stay on the beach," Teramoto said. "I think it's more fun to be in a small club because you get to know everybody."

Once Samson got a few kids to join, he asked them if they had any other friends at school who wanted to paddle.

"When you're rebuilding like we are, you take what you can get," he said.

The club also builds camaraderie through various community projects, such as recycling drives and beach clean-ups. Today, the Kai 'Oni paddlers plan to spend a few hours picking up trash at Hanalei Bay.

"This club is truly family-oriented," said Freddy Rangel, a member of the novice crew. "I bring my wife and daughter to the races and they don't even paddle. But they're a part of it like everybody else."

The club also experienced success on the water this year.

Kai 'Oni won the A division championship for small clubs at the OHCRA Championship Regatta two weeks ago. The mixed 12 and mixed novice B crews won their races.

At the state regatta, the A division may be the most difficult title to win. Of the 57 clubs in the state regatta, 28 are in the A division.

Not that Kai 'Oni is aiming for a trophy.

"I told the kids to remember one thing on Kaua'i — enjoy it," Samson said. "We came so far with this club already, we just have to enjoy the fact that we're there. Wherever we place is fine with me."

Reach Dayton Morinaga at dmorinaga@honoluluadvertiser.com.