Trying to make someone crew and also have them pay a quarter million dollars to be crew without any training at all doesn’t seem like the magical loophole they think it would be in contract law. Especially when it’ll be comically easy in court to prove gross negligence with all the videos that doofus made about how much he hates maritime safety regulations and training.
If the phones that old it should have a 3.5mm jack. You should be able to plug it into an audio recorder and get the best quality.