The Hangzhou-Ningbo Canal is of great significance to the economy and material circulation in the eastern Zhejiang region. This study focuses on the automatic modeling and hull form optimization of container vessels sailing in the Hangzhou-Ningbo Canal by coupling CAESES with computational fluid dynamics (CFD). First, the hull structure is deformed based on semi-parametric modeling. A new hull form is iteratively generated according to the geometric parameters given by the optimization algorithm. In each iteration, the hydrodynamic performance of the hull model is solved by using CFD software to provide geometric parameters for the next iteration. The optimal hull form is eventually identified in the geometric configuration space through this iterative process. The results show that the optimized hull form achieves a drag reduction of 5.8%, and the pressure distribution on the hull surface is significantly improved, with a reduced negative pressure area and less stress concentration. This study can provide theoretical and technical support for the hull form optimization of inland container vessels.