BATH, Maine — The nation’s largest and most technologically sophisticated destroyer will join the Navy with a crew that’s the smallest of any destroyer built since the 1930s thanks to extensive automation.

The stealthy Zumwalt departed Wednesday from Bath Iron Works to head to its commissioning ceremony with a crew of 147 officers and sailors that were praised by their skipper for their preparation over the past three years to get the first-in-class warship ready for duty.

The 610-foot destroyer once headed out for sea trials in a snowstorm, and hundreds of people gathered to watch Wednesday as it headed into the remnants of Tropical Storm Hermine while leaving Maine for good.

The churning ocean with seas up to 14 feet high near Cape Cod won’t prevent the Zumwalt from paying a visit Thursday to Newport, R.I..

The sleek warship features an angular shape to minimize its radar signature, an unconventional wave-piercing hull, and a composite deckhouse that hides radar and other sensors. It boasts a powerful new gun system that can unload 600 rocket-powered projectiles on targets more than 70 miles away.

It weighs in at nearly 15,000 tons, about 50 percent heavier than current destroyers. But the crew size is half of the 300 personnel of those destroyers.