How High?

At a local duplicate club you are first to act with the following rather distributional hand.  What do you bid?

I have eight clubs, so I bid 4C.  Everybody passed, and I fairly quickly went down one (I won eight clubs and a spade).  Then came the comparison to the other tables.  This board was a disaster.  A complete bottom.  What happened?

As it turned out, I bid past our only making game: 3NT.  Partner had enough to stop the other suits, and the KC, so eight clubs and one other trick makes 3NT.  Two of four other pairs found that game, one defended something successfully (who knows what), while the last appears to have bid and made 3C.

So my 4C opener was a big loser.  Should I have bid 3C to allow partner the chance to bid 3NT?  I think I'd do the same thing again if I had the chance.  Hopefully next time it will have a happier outcome.