It’s a little wobbly aboard the Celesbian, the lesbian cruise ship paddling toward the Isle of Lesbos. As the valiant crew and wayward passengers keep colliding on the “lezzo deck” and accidentally brushing each other’s boobs in the slow, tight elevator, you might feel some character development leaks, some narrative squalls.

But with a few patches and some corrections at the steering wheel, “Swimming With Lesbians” is bound to be a seaworthy vessel. After all, its captain is Marga Gomez, one of the twinkliest stars in the Bay Area theater firmament, who with this production at Brava Theater’s cabaret mounts her 14th solo show.

Inspired by Gomez’s real-life stint as a cruise ship entertainer in the 1990s, “Swimming With Lesbians” has all the makings of a great voyage, starting with scrumptious characters.

Captain Debbie, delivering her morning announcements on the P.A., drawls the boat’s latitude and longitude as if she were a lounge act version of John Wayne. Aurora, the ship’s resident astrologer, proffers predictions and talismans with vampiric intensity (when she remarks on someone’s water sign, her subtext is, “I vant to suck your blood”). Vivacious passenger Isabelle, with her unplaceable midcentury movie star accent and gushy physicality, makes every conversation ripe for seafaring and sexual adventure.

The inciting incident of every scene is bingo caller and all-around social activity emcee Pru Perez, a classic lovable schlemiel. Her bungling attempts to hold onto a perpetually precarious job lead her to get accidentally handsy with passengers or Slip 'N Slide her way into an enemy’s arms.

It’s all a promising cocktail, but Gomez’s writing hasn’t yet distilled each passage to its essence. Gags dither past their punch lines, like a swimmer who’s won her race but then keeps treading water. Characters and intentions burst in hastily, without the show having established the niche they need to fill. A narrative frame — that this whole thing is Isabelle’s memoir, complete with chapter title cards — feels like an afterthought. Gomez’s characterizations also occasionally bleed into each other, as if she hasn’t fully decided how each denizen of the Celesbian is different from everyone else.

And yet Gomez is too endearing a performer not to carry the day. When Isabelle fantasizes about her “first lesbian affair,” Gomez pointedly surveys the audience, as if any member of the crowd might be a lucky winner. When the same character reveals where she’s from, Gomez pronounces “Chico” as if it’s as highfalutin as Monaco and as mysterious as the Isle of Atlantis. As Pru laments that as a Latinx she can’t help but talk with her hands, Gomez erupts in a spastic, staccato hand jive that could win a floor routine at a gymnastics competition.

With a few more practice laps, “Swimming WIth Lesbians” could be shipshape for a transoceanic tour.

Reach Lily Janiak:ljaniak@sfchronicle.com