Beneteau Oceanis 393 STIX

[Tranona]

Trouble with single numbers is that they tend to take on a life of their own. Some big production boats have very poor Stix figures which look very nice when you are told by the nice salesman that they are well above the minimum for going round the globe.

That is the nub of the problem. Single figure measures are representative of the views of the person/people who construct them and therefore choose the factors to include and the weighting. The more factors you have, the greater the opportunity to optimise the design to achieve the highest (most desirable?) number.

One thing is certain and that is a higher number does not necessarily mean "better" for a particular purpose. In this case it only indicates a passive ability to withstand extreme weather conditions, whereas success in ocean voyaging relies on active interplay from crew in relation to the boat and conditions. Equally a single figure is poor as a comparator without knowing the details of the contributing variables.