Well, from what I understand, sprint and drift is a tactic for transiting. You run up to flank speed (or some other rather fast speed) and then kill the engine and use that momentum to carry you for a rather good chunk of distance while really only making flow noise. It’s not really as useful in Sonalysts’ games because they don’t seem to properly model the ship’s momentum versus its drag, as in you slow down pretty quickly once you order a slower speed from a faster one (engineering side bar: you should slow down pretty quickly when you let off at the fast speeds, but once you get to slower speeds, the deceleration becomes a lot smaller). It’s actually modeled decently well in Tom Clancy SSN, however.
In my experience, when it comes to warships that are moving pretty fast while transiting--on the order of say at least 15-20 kts--once they overtake you, you’ve pretty much lost all tactical advantage unless you’re very close to launching. To keep up with them at a steady speed at that point involves making yourself blind and deaf. Even if you were to go flank and “sprint and drift” to stay caught up with them, for example say you’re keeping up with a 25 knot ship.. In the 688(I), you only have an 8 knot speed of advance running at flank speed, so if they’re decently far in front of you, you’re not going to catch up with them without letting everyone in the area know you’re there (and for a long time at that).
So I guess the real question is why are you following warships?
I would highly recommend only trying to engage warships if you can put yourself in a position where they come to you (tactical advantage). Otherwise, I would say abort and try to hand off the data to an ally or airborne asset. Once you lose that tactical advantage, there’s not much you can do.
I’m curious to see what others say, though.