Sink Your Worry Cleveland: A New Entertainment Experience

Jim Kukral was working as a deckhand on the Goodtime III when the idea came to him mid-sunset: Cleveland already had few private charter boats or entertainment cruises; he could easily start his own if he wanted to.

Why shouldn’t he? He was 54. He had survived five years of cancer and an episode of heart failure. All he wanted to do was leave screen life for the open water.

Last year, Kukral left a high-paying job in sales to start Cleveland Floaters, a live, interactive entertainment series set on the tip of Scranton Peninsula and along the Cuyahoga River. It’s a three-act show featuring a quirky cast of characters with “drinks, quests and a bunch of fun stuff.”

One Kukral’s calling the Sink Your Worry Sunset Cruise.

But “this is not a comedy show,” Kukral said, standing in front of The Holiday, the boat he’s renting for his summer show.

“The goal of this isn’t slapstick. It’s not laugh your butt off,” he said. “The goal is to, at its core, come down, enjoy the views, have a fun, weird experience and get some things off your chest.”

For decades, the 37 acres that is Scranton Peninsula, land often lumped in with the West Bank of the Flats, has sat as mostly industrial wasteland, covered in vacant grass lots, rusty shipyards and brownstone warehouses untouched in more than a century.

Kukral’s interest in charter boats means a coming makeover to a dock, leased by The Holiday, that hasn’t had an uplift in decades, Kukral said. Credit: Mark Oprea

But since 2021, when BrewDog opened up on the northwestern edge of the peninsula, the area has shifted. By 2023, The Collins apartment complex turned Scranton into a neighborhood, with Tritan at the Flats opening earlier this year. By fall, Ohio’s first outdoor sauna park, Saunagoose, is opening across the river from Tower City.

And, by June, so is Kukral’s comedy-slash-catharsis cruise show.

What Cleveland Floaters seems to be doing, just like BrewDog and Saunagoose, is gradually removing Scranton Peninsula’s ghost town vibes in place of venues Clevelanders actually want to be. In the summer, that’s on the water.

While the Lady Caroline and the Goodtime III have their own spectacles on the Cuyahoga, Cleveland has very few small boats operating that double as entertainment venues. (And have a bar and bathrooms onboard.)

“I mean, I thought it was a wonderful idea,” Donna, marketing manager for The Holiday’s private charter business, told Scene. “Jim’s a go-getter. He’s got a vision. We’ve got the venue and the parking. So, it’s a good match.”

Kukral said he’s hiring comedians and improv actors to fill out his cast of characters: Uncle Robbie, the “Forrest Gump of Cleveland” who’s never left the Flats; Lake Keri, the “spiritual soul” of the show; Captain Carl, the retired plumber from Parma; and himself, Admiral Jim.

Ticket prices haven’t been set yet for Sink Your Worry, though Kukral suggested pricing similar to mid-range shows at Playhouse Square. And an interaction level similar to Flanagan’s Wake.

It’ll also include some soul purging at sea. By the end of the second act, all partipants will be instructed to write one thing bothering them in their lives on a dissolvable piece of paper.

“And then everyone’s gonna walk to the side of the boat, gonna throw it in the water,” Kukral said. “And then, you’re gonna watch it dissolve.”