Western Towboat Company

Western Towboat Company, doing business as Western Towboat Co, is a small business prime contractor that provides tug services, dry cargo voyage charters, and marine transportation throughout the Pacific Northwest and Arctic regions, competing predominantly under total small business set-asides for its high-value dry cargo contracts with the Military Sealift Command and on full-and-open basis for routine tug support to the Coast Guard and other maritime agencies.

The company is a for-profit Subchapter S corporation headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and has maintained federal contracting status since 2001. Western Towboat operates as a family-owned maritime transportation provider with concrete capability across vessel towing, barge operations, and intermodal sealift. Primary NAICS categories are coastal and Great Lakes freight transportation, navigational services to shipping, and inland water freight transportation; PSC coding runs across vessel towing and marine charter procurement. The company holds no SBA certifications beyond small business status.

Customer concentration is extreme and narrow. The Department of Homeland Security U.S. Coast Guard accounts for 120 awards (60% of all awards in the source) with $736 thousand combined potential value — high frequency but modest per-award magnitude, representing routine operational support for Coast Guard Cutter Healy tug and pilot services. The Department of the Navy Military Sealift Command dominates dollar value: thirteen awards carrying $13.8 million combined potential value, anchored by four major dry cargo voyage charters ($2.019 billion, $1.729 million, $1.389 million, $1.208 million) set aside for total small business and routed through Military Ocean Terminal Concord in California to Valdez, Alaska, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and return. The Department of the Army Corps of Engineers Seattle district, the Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Navy Naval Facilities Engineering Command round out the active set. Eighty percent of all awards concentrate with these five customers; Military Sealift Command commands 99% of combined potential value despite holding only 6.5% of award count.

Western Towboat holds a multiple-award Indefinite Delivery Contract as part of the Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement (VISA) contingency services program awarded October 1, 2024, with contract performance through September 30, 2034 and a zero-dollar ceiling. The contract, funded through the Department of Defense United States Transportation Command via the Air Force, commits a percentage of the company's U.S. flag vessel capacity to support contingency sealift operations on an as-needed basis. The company also places work under the Waterfront Multiple Award Construction Contract (nine task orders).

Activity has been lumpy and concentrated in the period 2023–2024, with fourteen awards in 2023 and twenty-one in 2024, declining sharply to seven in 2025 and two in 2026 through April. The combined obligated value of $17.8 million has exceeded combined potential value by seven percent, indicating invoice-and-burn posture; however, high concentration of recent activity in Military Sealift Command dry cargo charters with ultimate completion dates in mid-2025 creates recompete exposure. The most recent award (April 2, 2026) is a $1.729 million Military Sealift Command dry cargo voyage charter set aside for total small business, loading April 29, 2026, discharge in Hawaii by May 11, 2026, and returning California by May 21, 2026.

In its subcontractor capacity, Western Towboat supplies tug and towage services to Vigor Marine LLC on USS Kidd (DDG 100) FY25 depot modernization work (arrival/departure tow support and dry-docking support, awarded February and March 2025) and to Manson Construction Company on multiple Locks and Dams civil works contracts at Lower Salmon River Lock Center in Washington, including large lock center gate replacement and mooring-camel fabrication (awarded January, September, and December 2023). Subcontract work represents fifteen percent of the vendor's prime footprint.

family owned operated and offering local and charter services fleet of 22 tug boats and 7 barges operating 24/7 365 days a year.