Emily Nagel and her Mirpuri Foundation Racing Team colleagues came up short in their bid for glory in the opening leg of the inaugural Ocean Europe Race.

The Portuguese-based team finished last among the seven entries in the one-design VO65 fleet despite having led most of the 2,000 nautical miles from Lorient, France, to Cascais, Portugal.

The race came down to a nail-biting conclusion in light breeze yesterday, with only six minutes separating class winners Austrian Ocean Race Project from Nagel and her team-mates.

Led by accomplished Dutch helmsman Gerwin Jansen, Austrian Ocean Race Project came from behind to pip Lithuanian entry Ambersail-2 for line honours by a mere six seconds.

“It’s crazy that we won this super-intense race,” Jansen commented on the race’s official website. “We are super-happy!

“The last 30 miles were so intense, it was unbelievable. We just kept on fighting and this was the result!”

Team Childhood I, which competed under both the Sweden and Netherlands banner, crossed a minute after Ambersail-2 to round off the podium.

Sailing Poland finished fourth, Nagel’s former team AkzoNobel Ocean Racing fifth and Viva Mexico sixth.

Meanwhile, French entry Corum L'Epargne clinched line honours in the high-performance foiling IMOCA 60 fleet.

United States entry 11th Hour Racing Team finished second and previous leaders LinkedOut, also of France, were third.

The Ocean Race Europe is designed to showcase top-flight fully-crewed competitive ocean racing featuring the best international teams.

The race takes the fleet from the North Atlantic coast of Europe into the Mediterranean Sea and will also stop in Alicante, Spain, before finishing in Genoa, Italy.

Teams will earn points from all the offshore legs with bonus points to be awarded to the top three teams at the coastal races in Cascais and Genoa.

The final overall rankings will be determined based on overall points totals for the teams. There will be winners and prizes in each class for the race.