Almost to 1,000,000 Free XP for my Alaska, though.
I was thinking of doing that but decided it was too much of a grind (I only had 250-300,000 free XP) and was unwilling to convert XP with gold.
Instead I've researched and purchased some of the new heavy British cruisers and some fast Italian jobs. 40 kts for a cruiser (without boost flag) is great,the torps are only 10 kts faster