For a first attempt, I would go for something with some beam so that you are not worrying too much about ballast, room and bouyancy. Destroyers are great but they can be tight for fitting elctronics and also you have to be mindful of what you put on top by way of materials.
This assumes you are looking at building a 1:96th scale model.
For all round interest, I would go for the ninteenth century HMS Rupert. It has a single turret, a single mast, some old fashioned deck guns in the stern, and not too much superstructure. It is a turreted Ram designed to hit and sink enemy ships rather than sink them with gun fire so is interesting.
I worked from the two view drawings off the net and sort of sculpted the shape by eye. You could get the plans from the National maritime museum?