POOLE'S Christian Toll and Mike Bontoft will be chasing a Harmsworth win at Cowes on Sunday.

The pair, who will race Dry Martini to Torquay and back, are one of four teams gunning for glory.

Warpath, Silverline, Dry Martini and Blastoff Racing not only need to win the coveted Beaverbrook Trophy that comes with a Cowes-Torquay-Cowes win, they also need big points to secure the oldest motorboating trophy in the world – the Harmsworth.

The trophy was first awarded in 1903 to lady racer Dorothy Levitt and is this year being contested over four rounds.

Round one was held in Dorset in June when the Warpath team of Glenn Chidzoy, Ole Finholt and Gordon Compton won the Fortitudo Property Poole Bay 100.

Toll, Bontoft and Michael Peet steered Dry Martini to the runners-up position.

The teams then travelled to Falmouth in Cornwall where Drew Langdon and Miles Jennings finished ahead of Warpath and took the overall honours in Silverline.

After two rounds, Warpath goes into the Cowes race with 700 points ahead of Silverline (527), Dry Martini (525) and Blastoff Racing (320).

The race to Torquay will count as round three and the round four race back to Cowes is set to start from Haldon Pier on Sunday afternoon.

Hot favourite to win the Beaverbrook Trophy is the Swedish team of Mikko Oikari, Lars Eriksson and Michael Backhuvud and Ireland's John Ryan.

They are bringing an Outerlimits hull Going Lean, which is powered by four Fiat Powertrain diesel motors which push out some 2400 hp.

Oikari is no stranger to offshore racing, having won the Skagerak Across race (Norway to Denmark) and has competed admirably in the 2008 Round Britain race.

The 2016 Cowes-Torquay-Cowes winner Richard Carr has pulled out all the stops after his Fortitudo Cougar hull suffered extensive and expensive damage at the Poole 100 race.

He will be racing with Mark Pascoe and James Sinclair as his usual throttle man Steve Curtis has a prior commitment to race for Geico in the United States.