how to handle purchase/transaction

I'm buying a boat from a guy who has a loan out on it yet. He lives in one city, the credit union is a few hours away from where he lives now, and I live several hours from both? How do we make the exchange? I'm paying with a cashier's check from my credit union. But I know his credit union has to sign off on the title. What's the simplest way to do this? Think the two credit unions would work together to make this happen? Any advice?

You would probably need to issue two cashier's checks. One to his credit union for the payoff and another to him for the balance. Or if he has an account at the credit union (checking, savings, etc.) you could just make the whole check to his credit union and they would clear the loan and deposit the balance into one of his deposit accounts. Whatever route you take his credit union needs to know what is going down so they could just mail the title to you.

Tell your Credit union they should be working with the other credit union to pay off the loan

You could also make the check out to him AND the Credit union and put "pay off for boat" in the memo. He will give you the signed title when you pick up the boat and his bank will send you the lien release after he pays it off.

I purchased my boat the same way, and I met the seller at the credit union he had the loan with. He also banked there so the difference was deposited into his account they gave me the title and that was it. I then took the title to my bank and paid my taxes at the bmv.