I've been doing some changes to the scene I did based on some of the comments.  I decided to move away from the sunken ship though.  I changed the sky and retextured the terrain so it has some vegetation and beach area.  I'm not really happy with the water and trying to figure out how to add some fires on the beach and maybe some launches pulled up on sure.  Just throwing this out here for some more feedback and tips.

Awesome image being made here. 

My 2 cents worth. 

Terrain is super and image has a very realistic quality.  If realism is what you are trying to achieve... one ship would work better, two maximum (possibly they could be sister ships)... with sails down one assumes they are at anchor.  If that is the case, the ships would be spread apart to allow for wind shifts swinging them around the anchor point.  Trying to add launches on the shore would be so tiny they would be unrecognizable and if they were scaled large enough to see on the shore they conflict the scale of the image total.  Does that make sense?

Increase the frequency of the water mat.

For fire light, add a radial light, place it at the shoreline, set fall-off to squared and play with intensity and colors.

These are just suggestions.  There are other ways to jive up the scene like experimenting with POV and such.

I was thinking the same thing about the launches, no way they could really be seen unless they were made bigger than the ships they came from.  I'll play around with the radial light to see what I can come up with for the fire.

This is the second image I have done since originally starting to try and learn this several years ago, so any hints and tips are welcome.

Wow, you've made some great improvements. Having been to the ocean recently, I wouldn't say that having a lot of ships is wrong. But there may need to be some diversity in them. Jedswindels(sp?) has some awesome freebies of ships.
I love the mood. Makes me think it's night and everyone has turned in for the night.

Terrific scene...   you can have launches out but not on the shore... you may see how it works to put a couple by one of the ships.... tiny lights on the ships can bring life on board...

I agree with Angie's point. 

There could be multiple ships at anchor but different type ships would be believable.   You were very intuitive to place multiple ships at anchor facing in the same direction.  They would be anchored from the bow and would all swing around downwind to face into the wind. (keep wind direction in mind if adding any smoke trails from camp fires on shore).

My point about reducing the number of ships may be getting a little too picky.  Ships did not travel in packs in general (unless armada at war).   The only reason multiple ships would be at anchor in the same place would be in a seaport.  If that was the case then the shore would include buildings and piers.

One or two ships traveling together could be stopping at a deserted shore to take on fresh water and provisions. 

Your scene is wonderful as is but you asked for pointers and opinions. 

ps
Can you tell I was in the navy.

I agree with what the others say, and I would also add that a slightly lower camera level would work better. The high standpoint of the camera from the sea seems a little unrealistic, unless you could show a high cliff edge in the forground, as if the camera is looking from there instead of from the sky. This could give the impression of the other side of a bay area.
I like your other improvements so far.
One other addition to remember in any scene, is to give the viewer something to focus on, hence the mention of too many ships. This would work of course if one of the ships looked different in some way, or was doing something different at least.
Keep em coming, interesting so far.

The more I played with this, the more I thought that with the sky I am using, it needed to be something really cold and wintery, so I went in a completely new direction.  I do like the look with the lower camera angle a lot better (thanks dhama).  I'm pretty happy with how it looks now, so I think i'm going to leave this one alone and try something else.  I'm going to keep them fairly simple for now until I am more comfortable with Bryce.  I think that's why I gave up the first time I tried to learn this....I tried to do things way above my capabilities.

Here's alink to the final render  http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1758782

Ah yes, nice and dramatic. I know you want to move on to another now, but another idea here could be depth of field rendering. That way you could have another ship between the first one and the land that would be slightly out of focus. This would also give the impression of the ships dimensions and the surrounding area.

If you are unsure, or have not used depth of field yet, first select the object in the scene that you want the camera to focus on. Then select 'render options'. In the top left of the little window, select 'premium (effectAntialiasing)' and check the 'depth of field' below it.
Rendering will take longer, but is well worth the wait.
You could try this with a simple scene first, say two simple blocks at different distances, so you can see the effect quicker.

Theres no such thing as doing things above your capabilities. As a baby learns the first step, it's a step much the same as one taken later, just that the later step is a new experience. Keep those new experiences coming and you'll begin to see vast improvement in your renders very quickly. But if you see something that is beyond your capabilities, your renders will more than likely stay the same.

Good luck and keep us posted on your new experiences.