Shipment modes
Sea Freight for Heavier International Moves That Can Wait
Sea freight is containerized ocean capacity plus the trucks on both ends. FCL versus LCL, port pair, and dwell decide landed time and cost.
Updated 2026-09-07 · sea freight
Sea freight is how importers and exporters move cubes of cargo that would bankrupt an air budget: furniture, machinery, bagged goods, and retail fills measured in weeks at sea plus days of port and drayage. You are buying a port pair and a box, not a highway ETA.
COL Freight Solutions is a licensed property broker for the inland truck. When cargo needs water, we coordinate the ocean piece through carrier or forwarder partners—we do not issue house ocean bills. We will not sell sea freight as a two-day product. If your date is next Wednesday, look at truck or air first.
FCL versus LCL inside sea freight
Full container load (FCL) is your cargo, your seal, your box. Less-than-container (LCL) is consolidation in a container shared with other shippers, with extra handling at CFS stations. LCL can win on small cubes; FCL wins when you would fill a 20' or 40' anyway or when you cannot tolerate extra touches.
Weight limits and overweight permits on the inland legs can make a “cheap 40'” expensive once it hits a U.S. or Mexican highway. Quote door-to-door, not port-to-port, if you do not have your own drayage.
What the ocean calendar actually includes
CY cutoff, sailing, transshipment if any, discharge, customs, and chassis. A vessel that is “on the water” is not at your dock. Dwell and demurrage are how sea freight teaches people to pre-clear documents.
Peak season and blank sailings exist. COL will quote a window, not a fantasy berth.
Inland is still freight
Drayage from Long Beach, Houston, Manzanillo, or Lázaro Cárdenas is truck freight with port rules. Appointment systems, chassis shortages, and night gates change cost. Hide the inland and the sea freight number is incomplete.
COL’s highway brokerage is the native language here. The ocean booking is coordinated; the rubber-tire risk is ours to manage with carriers we know how to book.
When sea is the wrong mode
Perishables without a reefer container program, cargo that cannot wait for the next sailing, and samples that should have gone air. Also cargo that is illegal or undocumented—no mode fixes that.
North America plant-to-plant freight that never needed a port should stay on truck or rail. Do not ocean a Dallas–Monterrey load because someone likes containers.
Ask COL to price inland—and name the ocean partner
Send commodity, cube, weight, Incoterm if you have one, and the hard date. Request a quote that names the truck legs to the door and who holds the ocean booking when water applies.
Call 561-880-9808. If sea is occasional on a truck account, we keep the domestic cadence on highway and coordinate the water exception with partners—without pretending COL is the NVOCC.
