What is it all about?
Ocean Engineering is all about harnessing & working with the power of the oceans. There is a lot of ambiguity amongst the common people regarding the exact domains of oceanography, ocean engineering, ocean physics, offshore engineering and so on. Actually the term ocean engineering is an ambiguously coined phrase, but may refer to oceanographic engineering. At the same time oceanographic engineering itself is a combination of various disciplines such as marine electronics engineering applied to support the work of oceanographers. On the other hand, it may be referred to Offshore engineering or maritime engineering, which again is a allied branch of civil engineering, which deals with the offshore fixed & floating structures. It also includes drilling/production of natural resources like oil & gas from the sea bed. The extraction of oil & gas may fall under the category of ocean renewable energy. I really hope the above description has cleared some of your doubts regarding the differences between these unique yet closely inter-related and inter-mingled branches of engineering.
The Society Of Naval Architects & Marine Engineers(SNAME) describes the work of "Ocean Engineers" as follows:
Ocean Engineers investigate the action of ocean environment on ships and other marine vehicles & structures like oil rigs, submarines, FPSO's etc.They also design & operate Ocean platforms, or manned or remote-operated vehicles used for deep sea exploration.
If you have seen the movie "Titanic", the research team used a deep sea under water diving vessel which is remotely controlled, for finding the parts of ships wreck. This is a good example of the type of projects involved in ocean engineering.
Ocean engineering blends with offshore engineering, except for one division. Offshore engineering deals with offshore platforms, oil rigs and even berths, jetties etc. But ocean engineering in addition to offshore engineering deals with the sub-sea floating objects and platforms, near shore piers,sewer outfalls as well as common offshore structures such as petroleum drilling and operating platforms. It should also be noted that the construction, design and operation of ships does not come under ocean engineering.