I covered the history of the annual tea race – the informal competition to bring home the season's first cargo of tea to London – here. The tl;dr is that victory in the race meant a good deal to the captains who participated: not only professional prestige, but future employment, could rest on it.

For crews the rewards were lesser; there was a prize for the first ship home, generally 10 shillings per ton of cargo, but this went to the skipper and it was his decision whether or not to split it with his crew. There's no reason to doubt, however, that ordinary crew members took pride in the performance of their ships.