Hawaii was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of . She displaced as designed and up to at deep load. The ship was powered by four General Electric geared steam turbine sets, each driving one propeller and eight oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers rated at and a top speed of . The ship had a cruising range of at a speed of .Gardiner & Chesneau, p. 122Egan, p. 36 She carried four floatplanes, housed in two hangars,Garzke & Dulin, p. 182 with a pair of aircraft catapults mounted amidships.Friedman, p. 303
