As we have seen over the past couple of years, nautical metaphors and financial crises appear made for each other.

Since late 2007, investors have frequently encountered murky, stormy, or troubled waters as share prices have sunk and companies been holed below the waterline, a catastrophe which has caused oceans of despair among investors, who have been urged to batten down the hatches and weather the storm.

Investors have probably long wondered whether any safe harbours remain, a place where selected shares could anchor an equity portfolio, or has the stockmarket become an investor’s Bermuda Triangle where ships laden with their fortunes sink without trace?

On paper, the British stockmarket’s leading dividend payers (HSBC, Shell, BP, Vodafone and GlaxoSmithKline) are capable of underpinning most equity portfolios.

Three years ago, this quintet were responsible for more than a third of all dividend payments made by UK companies.

By last year, that ratio had risen to 47 per cent. That’s an impressive leap, so should investors simply split their resources and buy a piece of each company, safe in the knowledge that this percentage will continue to rise?

Not quite — and for two reasons. First, consider overall performance.

Shares in Shell yield a paltry 2.2 per cent, while BP’s prospective return is a solid-looking four per cent, but the recent share price performance of both oil majors has been less than encouraging.

HSBC’s shares are expected to yield an eye-catching 6.7 per cent, but as with all high-yielding equities, investors will be aware that this must be offset by an increased level of risk (perceived or otherwise). It is, after all, a bank.

Glaxo stock should provide a return of more than five per cent but, like the oil companies, its share price has taken a dive of more than 10 per cent since January.

This leaves Vodafone, currently yielding around 5.5 per cent. Though the telephone company’s share price has staggered like a drunken sailor of late, its wobble has not been overly dramatic.

The company’s share price has traded within a comparatively narrow four per cent range since last August, a performance which should give an element of comfort to beleaguered investors.

The second, equally important, reason for delaying the process of selling up and investing solely in these five companies has as much to do with statistical interpretation as it does with the performance of every other listed company.

The main reason why the stockmarket’s famous five account for almost half of all dividend payments is because so many of the others either cut their dividends, or stopped paying them altogether.

According to research published by Capita Registrars, dividends from Britain’s largest companies were cut by more than £10bn last year, a 15 per cent year-on-year drop.

This means that even had the famous five kept their dividends at the same level as they were in 2008, they would still have accounted for a higher percentage of payments as the amount distributed to shareholders fell from £67bn to £57bn.

More than 200 listed companies cut their dividends in 2009 — high street retailers’ yields fell 62 per cent, while household goods producers cut payments by a similar amount as profits came under severe pressure.

Adventurous folk will always want to set sail and take up the implied challenge of choppy waters, but more circumspect types may decide that with the current storm yet to pass, there is greater merit in remaining tied up in the harbour for now.