A smarter idea would be a fleet of automated ships following a flag carrier with the crew in it. This way, the crew per ship could be reduced, as an engineer a

A smarter idea would be a fleet of automated ships following a flag carrier with the crew in it. This way, the crew per ship could be reduced, as an engineer and even a captain cost would be divided between the ships. At the very least, the support for the crew would be more efficiently used , even if the direct crew pee ship don't get much reduced. Moreover, the ships don't need to be of the same class or cargo, or even company: the centralized crew could be responsible for some container ships and grain ships. If needed, hand off between flag carriers could be done in open sea with a follower ship detaching from one fleet and attaching to other, packet network style.