> 8-12 members who largely do maintenance, watch, and cook

I suppose the "cooking" part can be eliminated once you don't need maintainance and watch :-)

"Watch" is an interesting (and solvable?) challenge. Understanding the sea environment (visually, sonar etc) from the local (ship's) perspective can complement e.g satellite imagery. But there is also e.g. watching against piracy

Maintainance seems the toughest. Unless the engineering is perfected to the point that it is only required at ports.