Lake Union Drydock Company

Lake Union Drydock Company, a Seattle-based small business shipyard, operates as a prime contractor providing comprehensive drydock repair, maintenance, and preservation services to federal maritime agencies under total small business set-asides. The company competes exclusively as a prime, with 392 of 393 total awards (100%) in prime positions and minimal subcontractor engagement.

Lake Union Drydock delivers hull preservation, steel repairs, tank cleaning and inspection, machinery servicing, vessel modernization, and structural repairs across the federal maritime fleet. Recent representative work includes a $13.5 million definitive contract from Naval Air Systems Command (awarded January 8, 2026) for maintenance, repair, and preservation of the YTT-10 vessel through March 2027; a $6.5 million Coast Guard delivery order (January 12, 2026) for drydock repair and growth work on the USCGC Cypress through April 2026; a $12.99 million NOAA purchase order (September 18, 2023) for drydock repairs to the NOAA Ship Fairweather; and a $10.9 million NOAA purchase order (September 14, 2022) for drydock repairs to the NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette. Lake Union Drydock also received a $298,132 project grant from the Maritime Administration (August 19, 2025) under the Assistance to Small Shipyards program (CFDA 20.814) to purchase and install a Broderson 9-ton mobile crane, weld machines, plate cutter, and LED drydock lighting through August 2027, enhancing facility efficiency and employee productivity.

Customer concentration is heavily skewed toward two agencies. NOAA and the Coast Guard account for 97% of combined potential value across 97 awards: NOAA holds 37 awards valued at $238.8 million (primarily drydock task orders on research vessels including the Oscar Elton Sette, Oscar Dyson, Fairweather, and Reuben Lasker), and the Coast Guard holds 60 awards valued at $223.3 million (drydock work on cutters including the Alex Haley, Henry Blake, USCGC Alert, USCGC Cypress, USCGC George Cobb, and USCGC Anthony Petit). The Department of the Navy, while placing 248 awards, carries only $1.9 million in combined potential value due to the prevalence of micro-purchases and smaller task orders; Naval Air Systems Command and Naval Sea Systems Command together add $20.3 million across eight additional awards. The remaining 12 customer agencies hold less than 3% of combined potential value.

Lake Union Drydock holds multiple indefinite delivery vehicles anchoring its task-order pipeline. The largest is Navy IDC N6279970C0008 with 171 task orders, followed by Navy IDC N0002485H8173 with 44 task orders and Navy IDC N0002485H8673 with 8 task orders. On the civilian side, NOAA's Fleetwide Dockside and Ship Maintenance IDV (awarded September 12, 2023, $73.8 million ceiling) through August 2028 enables ongoing competitive task orders, and a single-award Coast Guard IDC (awarded January 12, 2026, $7.6 million ceiling) supports the Cypress drydock program through April 2026. These parent vehicles represent the company's primary ordering mechanisms; task orders issued under them constitute the majority of recent activity.

Activity trajectory shows volatility but recent momentum. Awards per year declined from nine in 2022 to five in 2023, then stabilized at five in 2024 before dropping to one in 2025 and rebounding to four in 2026. The recompete window presents moderate risk: only two awards with ultimate completion dates in the next twenty-four months carry combined potential value of $13.5 million (a small fraction of the $501 million total portfolio), suggesting most active work extends beyond the near-term recompete cliff. Awards span forty-five years of history (first source award in October 1980), indicating established, long-standing federal relationships.

On SCI-reportable federal service contracts, Lake Union Drydock invoiced $57.8 million across FY2023–FY2024: $16.5 million in FY2023 across 31 FTEs, and $41.3 million in FY2024 across 100 FTEs, reflecting material workforce expansion supporting increased deliverables. Median government-paid hourly rates run around $202.82/hr for labor and services, with skilled labor reaching the 90th percentile of $397.40/hr. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors account for 3% of contractor hours, with six named subcontractors engaged; this minimal sub-engagement underscores Lake Union Drydock's vertical integration model and in-house delivery of specialized shipyard labor. Work is performed at the contractor's certified drydock facility in Seattle, Washington, strategically positioned for U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels homeported in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, as well as NOAA research vessels operating from western U.S. ports.

Full service shipyard