Sea Orbit's route reveals what nuclear power does and does not solve

The route section follows Task Force One through exercises, port calls, the Indian Ocean, Australia, New Zealand, Cape Horn, and the South Atlantic. The storage burden recalls the large Soviet nuclear-powered Kirov ships: propulsion endurance does not remove the need for food, refrigeration, and other stores. At Karachi, poor sea conditions kept Enterprise and Long Beach outside the harbour while Bainbridge entered, showing that endurance did not remove port-access constraints. The three ships spent 65 days deployed, 57 of them at sea, and steamed 30,216 miles without replenishment. Rear Admiral Bernard M. Strean assessed that the force could have diverted to another maritime region without propulsion-fuel planning and arrived ready for immediate operations. Reactor machinery occupies space, and conventionally arranged fuel tanks can contribute to survivability, so eliminating propulsion fuel carries design tradeoffs as well as advantages.