Waterman Transport Inc.

Waterman Transport Inc., operating as Central Gulf Lines, a division of Seacor Holdings Inc., provides deep-sea dry cargo and tanker time charters and consolidated ocean-intermodal transportation services to the Department of Defense as a prime contractor competing without set-aside designation across multiple large indefinite delivery contracts. The company is a for-profit maritime transportation services entity headquartered in Mobile, Alabama, with a 100% prime contracting footprint spanning 330 federal awards valued at $5.41 billion in combined potential value since 1982.

Waterman Transport's customer base is heavily concentrated in defense logistics. The top five funding entities account for 91% of recent awards: the Army Materiel Command's Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (84 awards, $600.8 million combined potential value), the Navy's Military Sealift Command (72 awards, $439.3 million), the Office of the Secretary of Defense (66 awards, $141.6 million), the Navy (61 awards), and the Air Force's Air Mobility Command (17 awards, $206.5 million). However, potential value concentration diverges sharply — the Air Force holds $4.02 billion in combined potential value across only nine awards, anchored by two major indefinite delivery vehicles.

Waterman Transport holds prime positions on five named parent vehicles: the Universal Services Contract-10 (USC-10), a $4.0 billion multiple-award IDIQ with the Air Force effective through August 2025 with four one-year option periods, on which the company has executed eight task orders valued at $25.2 million; the Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement (VISA) Contingency Services indefinite delivery contract, awarded October 1, 2024, by the Air Force with a base performance period through September 2029 and one five-year option extending to September 2034; the Ocean and Intermodal Cargo Transport 2019 contract held with Air Mobility Command (45 task orders, $106.4 million); USTRANSCOM Universal Service Contract-8 (44 task orders, $104.6 million); and USTRANSCOM USC-7 International Surface Transportation (44 task orders, $72.6 million). Work categorizes primarily under NAICS 483111 (Deep Sea Freight Transportation) — 266 of 268 awards — with PSC coding split between V125 (Transportation: Vessel Freight, 187 awards) and V124 (Marine Charter, 131 awards).

Representative work spans dry cargo time charters and voyage charters for military sealift operations. Recent named definitive contracts include an $11.2 million 63-day tanker time charter from the Navy's Military Sealift Command for Mediterranean operations (December 2025), a $9.6 million 100-day dry cargo time charter for ice-class, self-sustaining resupply operations (December 2025), a $7.76 million 43-day dry cargo time charter supporting Department of Defense global logistics (January 2026), and a $6.15 million dry cargo voyage charter for military cargo transport between Corpus Christi, Cuxhaven, and Gdynia (July 2025). Waterman Transport also holds delivery orders under USC-10 for consolidated transportation shipments, including a $7.4 million order from the Air Force (March 2025), a $4.3 million order (October 2025), and a $4.33 million order (August 2025), all performing in Mobile, Alabama or South Korea.

Activity has stabilized at 16–19 awards per year over the past five years, though 2026 shows only three awards to date. Waterman Transport performs maritime transportation services directly through its own vessel operations and control capabilities; the source identifies no major subcontractors. As a subsidiary of Seacor Holdings Inc., a for-profit corporate entity, Waterman Transport competes in full-and-open competition across its entire portfolio, with no SBA set-aside designations.