For those having trouble getting the game to work with the known DLL fix and the other workarounds, I have found that the D3d8.dll file in this utility works where the others do not. I tested this on the Steam release of Dangerous Waters. I have not yet tested it with the original Strategy First release or the GOG release. As with the other DLL fixes, just extract it from the archive and place it in the main game directory. This DLL did resolve the issue on the one computer I had problems with.
EDIT: Confirmed to work with the other installs of Dangerous Waters.
https://github.com/AlpyneDreams/d8vk.../tag/d8vk-v1.0