Hey! I was on the Kennedy too, and...I thought she went faster than that!
My berth was right under the wires, and I remember one of the crossings we made across the Atlantic at high speed...I woke up, and the whole compartment was vibrating as the screws, at a frequency that my memory tells me was about 200 times a minute, was going “WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM”
It was wild. The ship was hauling ass across the Atlantic (Don’t know why, maybe they were just stretching her legs) so I got up and went down to the fantail, and there was a mountain of white water.
VERY impressive! (BTW, when were you on? I was on 1976 to 1979...attached airing, VA-46)
I was on her for the 1986 Med Cruise. I was berthed under the water brakes at the forward end of the catapults. Most of my squadron was under the wires, though. As for speed, 32 knots is all the navigation channel on the TV showed. She could have been going faster.