Yes, there were. I've written a couple places in the past about the transition from sail to steam:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2gv83n/what_sort_of_jobs_did_the_crew_do_on_an/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2jso46/how_did_the_transition_from_wooden_ships_to/

In addition to what I wrote there: For officers in the British navy, at least, the biggest concern during this transition was what sailors would do without having to sail the ship -- that is, if there were no masts and sails to sail with, and do drills on, how would they learn sailor-like skills of seamanship? There was also some moral panic over the status of enlisted crewmen such as stokers (a semi-skilled job) and artificers (enlisted men with engineering specialities) -- were they to be considered sailors or mechanics, and could they be in the same service branch as other enlisted men? This became particularly acute as a shortage of stokers and artificers forced up privileges and pay for them over time, threatening the status of what the officer corps considered "real sailors," that is those men who made their living on the masts.

Well not quite moral, as in "we can't use this as its an unfair advantage" but there were more than a few voices who wondered if the "iron" in the Wooden ships and Iron men wouldn't be weakened.

Drills in the tops and rigging were seen as an essential part of both training a crew, and teaching junior officers to command. Along with a builder of espirt de corps in the crews competing against each other. Combined with gunnery drills and inspections by senior officers, rigging drills were a key factor in judgement of a ship's efficiency.

And it was taken VERY seriously as a matter of pride and distinction. We are related in Rules of the Game by Gordon, how cheating was not unheard of for the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet. Each morning while the squadrons were at Malta or wherever they found themselves they would usually go through a series of evolutions ordered by their admirals, with it being a race in a sense. Sometimes an underhanded crew might hide men aloft who had quietly gotten aloft in the predawn darkness. Thereby suddenly having enough hands to get the job done faster. The occasional deadly fall from prioritizing speed was seen as a necessary price to pay to hone the crews. Being proficient in commanding a ship under sail or at least through the drills was also a necessary step for a young officer(and part of the reason Midshipmen were usually responsible for the ships' boats), and a sign that he was a true sailor, when in the days of parallel career paths, engineering officers were something of 2nd class citizens.

Now Gordon to a degree hyperbolizes the attachment some officers had to their sails, but all recognized its value in training, along with more practical uses in a world of far flung coaling stations. And it was rather a natural transition that much of the value of the drills was transferred to the process of coaling a ship. Where all the crew, men and officers would break their backs to get the job done and could take pride in it.