The Spanish Armada - The Cannons

I have spent a few days working on refining the Spanish armada scene with the addition of cannon fire. However I have been having a few problems with creating this. The smoke from the cannons I have used particle clouds which render fine, and for the water splash I have used a combination of multi streak and multi point particles, which do not seem to render. The two types render in different ways, the particles clouds use the Maya software, whereas the multi streak and points use Maya hardware. I also have fireworks in the scene created the same way as the water splash and these render out OK. also while working with the splashes, my sea plane, created using softbodies explode when it comes to playing out the time line. This is somthing that I currently cannot check with a test render as the splash itself does not render, so as of this moment I cannot tell whether or not I have gone about creating an effect water splash in the best possible way.