Dana, in describing getting hides from shore to ship mentions "droghers". I found a site describing them as relatively small boats used for transporting cargo from shore to ship.
"A discussion of early shipping on the Clarence would not be complete without mentioning the droghers. These small local vessels were used for transporting all types of cargo on the river from logs, pigs, produce, etc, to deliveries of the latest goods offloaded from the sea-going steamers from Sydney."

I never heard the term, wwh. And you would think that a term for such a vessel would be commonplace. I'll bet it's a name of a place somewhere--or of a family!

Dear WW: the one I found a picture of (in Australia) looked like a thirty foot shallow draft barge, such as would be needed in harbors with no piers, to get cargo ashore, and from shore to ship. "Lighter" would be same thing, and far more commonly seen.