When the owner of the ship used the rope to catch the pirate, all players that helped during the fight will get a special reward, provided that they were on the same sub-server and withing 19 tiles of the Pirate when he's captured.
The gold will be divided equally amongst all these players: Here's your share of the 10000 reward money, you get X gold. You've earned it!
If the players logged out or cant be found, their share goes to the owner of the boat: X gold is for Player, I can't find them so I'm giving this to Captain X.