My boat has cringles for a third reef, and under its previous ownership, when it was a sailing school boat, the standard practice, if heavy weather was expected, was to reeve the Second Reef line through the Third Reef cringle, the First Reef line through the Second Reef cringle, and tie in the First Reef using the Outhaul. Needless to say, because of the accuracy of modern weather forecasting, the boat was never at sea rigged like that.
I was on a delivery of a Glenans Sunfast 32i from Baltimore to Paimpol when unexpectedly heavy weather occurred in the Channel, (or perhaps we misinterpreted the Shipping Forecast 🙁 ). We had not made alterations to the reefing lines, so we just dropped two-thirds of the sail and the skipper simply stepped up and tied back the clew with a piece of spare line, after which we raised the remaining handkerchief of sail (and the storm jib).
The membership association for owners of Dufour Yachts