Whatever happens to her, I will never forget leaning on the port side 02 level rail of the 1943 tin can I called home for a couple of years on a perfect Sunday afternoon in the flat-as-glass Tonkin Gulf as the Enterprise made a top-end run to the east. My ship was off the Big E’s starboard side, the closest escort. The escorts were steaming maybe 20 knots and the Enterprise was close to the western horizon when the steam started pouring out of her stacks. In a few minutes she blew past us with a rooster tail as high as her flight deck and a wake that put us on a 20* roll. Shortly thereafter she disappeared into the eastern horizon. My buddy on the surface radar in CIC called down to me when I had gotten back to the radio shack and said that our surface radar was unable to track any contact moving over 65 knots and that 65 passed that velocity before the horizon. That’s some heavy truckin’, kiddies.
The Enterprise is nuclear powered and has no stacks for steam to pour out of!