Hitoshi Narita

He believes that his career interests were sparked by having watched the large cargo ships coming in and out of the ports near his home.

[1] Narita developed the world's first use of the catamaran-like design for large commercial ferries—the "small waterplane area twin hull" or SWATH configuration.

[1] Narita lead the team developing the novel Mitsui Integrated Duct Propeller (MIDP), which was designed to increase fuels saving in large ships.

The MIDP increased propeller efficiency and virtually eliminated the shipyard downtime which was formerly necessary for repairing the erosion problems.

Narita played a significant role in steps which led to establishing Japan-US joint participation projects, which meant Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in 2001.