She was the talk of the town and now she is gone till the next time. The Navios Unite, as she is called, is 1,100' long and 140' wide. That is 8' longer than a Nimitz class aircraft carrier and 6' wider at the waterline. The ship is so wide, it requires two pilots to transit. While in the top 5, it isn't the largest ship of any type to ever transit the river, but it is the largest container ship to do so.
In just two decades from now, half of all domestic ships plying Japan’s coastal waters may be piloting themselves. That’s the ambitious goal of the Nippon Foundation, a public-interest organization backing the country’s development of ocean-traversing autonomous ships. It aims to see crewless ships make up 50% of Japan’s local fleet by 2040.
