1. The majority will be fighting eachother on boats, but if these boats explode(which will likely happen before any kills are made) you have to swim and you can't fight.
You should be careful and you must avoid exploding your boat by watching carefully its health, fortunately the vehicles are undestructible without the driver. And there should be a lot of boat spawns, they should be literally everywhere.
2. Snipers will have a huge advantage in this water map, especially in situations like the one described in 1.
It seems for me to be a greater problem. Well, the country rifles are, really, desperately needed to be back, and not only for potential isles map. Non-VIPs have absolutely nothing against snipers, and country rifles at least somehow used to compensate this issue (as the spraycan at least somehow compensates the chainsaw).
Btw, a single grenade would be able to destroy the whole boat with all of its passengers, so there should be also no grenades.