I served on board the USS Carl Vinson in the Reactor Controls division We had a knotmeter mounted in the No 2 aft EOS enclosed operating station Where the watch officer reactor operator two throttlemen and a log rcorder stood watch I remember seeing 100 power aft and in the 90 s forward The aft plant always drew more power at high speed due to the center screws taking more power At this max allowed peacetime power the ship did do over thirty knots but not much the increase in power required to gain even a few knots was immense Even if the battle short switches were on over riding all reactor protective functions the plants just plain could not make enough power to go a whole lot faster The power required to turn a marine propeller is proportional to the cube of the propeller s rotational speed i e to double the speed of the propeller takes eight times the power Forty knots Not likely