The contract from the U.S. Maritime Administration, which could last for up to 10 years, will require the companies to keep 17 ships in good repair and provide crews for them. The ships are part of the Department of Transportation's Ready Reserve Force, which typically carry military supplies or humanitarian aid and are kept at a "high state of readiness."

"It's one of those things that you have to keep in a constant state of readiness," said Crowley Liner Services spokesman Mark Miller. "If [the Maritime Administration] calls and says we need to deploy, we need to move very quickly and have the crews ready to go."

The management companies do not own the ships, but are responsible for maintenance and repair duties as well as for hiring the 10 to 27 crew members who serve on the vessels.

None of the ships will be home-ported in Jacksonville, but Crowley has maintenance work done on Ready Reserve ships at North Florida Shipyards, a Jacksonville-area ship repair and conversion company.

One of the ships managed by Marine Transport Lines, a company in New Jersey owned by Oakland, Calif.-based Crowley Maritime Corp., is being worked on at the Jacksonville dry dock. Crowley Maritime, which also owns Crowley Liner Services, had major upgrade work done on Ready Reserve ships in Jacksonville in 2000 and 2002.

The Ready Reserve ships have also had material loaded on them at the military base on Blount Island.

Crowley Liner Services was the big winner in the contract race, which saw the 54 ships owned by the Maritime Administration parcelled out to nine companies at a cost of $1.9 billion over the life of the contract, which has a four-year base period and two three-year renewals.

Crowley Liner Services will handle 11 ships -- with vessels based in Maryland, Texas, Washington and California -- and be paid $182.1 million. Marine Transport will take care of six ships, all in South Carolina, for $104.4 million.

The award is based on past performance, technical qualification and price, said Susan Clark, a spokeswoman with the Maritime Administration. "Crowley has managed ships for us in the past and obviously have done a good job," she said.

Companies in Louisiana, California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Texas will maintain the rest of the fleet, which have transported almost 15 million square feet of cargo on 91 trips over the past two-and-a-half years.

timothy.gibbonsjacksonville.com, (904) 359-4103