Andy O’Brien, owner of the Charlotte Sailing Center, was informed at the end of July that the owner of the property, Lake Champlain Transportation, was not renewing his lease.
“They’re taking it over. That’s all I know,” O’Brien said on Wednesday afternoon from the marina’s modest dock beside the Charlotte-Essex, N.Y. ferry crossing.
The company, which operates two ferry routes on Lake Champlain, has given boat owners until September 1 to remove any vessels stored on land and until October 1 to vacate their moorings, O’Brien said.
“The timeline is a little unrealistic, but it is what it is,” said O’Brien, a tanned, barrel-chested former sailing instructor who’s been on the water since he was 5.
Boat owners say they were blown over by the news.
“It was shocking to hear that we had a month to get our personal property off that area,” said Peter Friedrichsen of Charlotte. He and a friend co-own a 28-foot San Juan sailboat they’ve kept at the marina for six years.
O’Brien is a hardworking, personable guy who has helped them out of a few scrapes, including coming to their rescue when their mast snapped.
“He’s been a really great partner for us,” Friedrichsen said.
His partner called more than a dozen other marinas or property owners and finally found a new mooring near the Safe Harbor Shelburne Shipyard. It’s not as convenient as the Charlotte location, but it will do, Friedrichsen said.
Safe Harbor Shelburne Shipyard.
For John Ayers of Montpelier, the marina has been a wonderful, frill-free place to moor his 34-foot Hinckley sailboat. It’s well protected but also close to the main lake, he said.
“It’s a beautiful spot to have an anchor because you’re on the lake very quickly,” he said as he pumped up his rubber dinghy before heading out for a sail on Wednesday.
The lack of information about what the future holds has been frustrating, he said. This winter he’ll store his beloved sloop indoors at Rouses Point, but what happens next year is anyone’s guess, he said.
“I’m kind of hoping to figure out what the hell is going on,” he said.
Officials at Lake Champlain Transportation did not return calls for comment.
Speculation is rampant about what the Pecor family, which has owned the ferry company for decades, might have in store for the 10-acre waterfront property.
The ferry company purchased the property, just a few hundred feet south of the ferry terminal, in the 1980s, likely to maintain some control over the boat traffic in and out of the snug cove, O’Brien said.
After ceasing operations of the seasonal tourist-oriented crossing between Burlington and Port Kent, N.Y. in 2019, the company sought to move its ship maintenance yard and offices from its King Street ferry dock in Burlington
to a Grand Isle property beside the ferry crossing at Gordons Landing. It then hoped to build a sleek 6,500-square-foot restaurant in Burlington.
Both projects ran into stiff headwinds, however. Neighbors opposed the Gordons Landing project, and it was scaled back. The restaurant never got approval, in part because of legal restrictions on the use of the waterfront property.
So people have naturally wondered whether the family is now eyeing sleepy Charlotte for some of its development ambitions.
“That’s a really choice piece of property,” Friedrichsen said, noting its views of the harbor and significant traffic due to the ferry.
A Charlotte official said no development plans have been filed with the town.
Correction, August 8, 2025: An earlier version of this story misidentified the Safe Harbor Shelburne Shipyard.