It was a calm day on Yankee Station in 1971 (or maybe it was ‘70) when the U.S.S. Enterprise took some down time from bombing to conduct a top end run. I was on the destroyer closest to her starboard side and was called out of my electronic cave to watch the action by my buddy on the surface radar up in CIC. Our ship and the other five escorts were steaming east around 20 knots and the Enterprise was dead in the water almost to the horizon behind us. I saw a great cloud of steam from her and she started to accelerate. In a couple of minutes, she passed us with a rooster tail higher than her flight deck and the wake put us on 20 degree rolls. She disappeared over the horizon and I called my radarman and asked how fast she was going. He replied that the surface radar was unable to track speed in excess of 65 knots and that the Enterprise exceeded that several miles before she disappeared. That carrier was fully loaded with crew, planes, ordnance and all the stuff needed for bombing the snot out of Hanoi.
I don’t know how fast the JFK could go, it was never even revealed to us. But when I stood in the hangar bay looking out at the ocean as it swept by when we were running at high speed, the perception felt much the same to me as being on a Greyhound bus traveling at highway speeds.