Several boats come to mind although they are definitely more difficult to
build than the Weekender.

1. George Buehler's POGO. This is a little daysailor that will do nicely
for the use mentioned. it is small and built with plywood and easily
available materials. It is a cute boat that should be fun to sail but it is
also ballasted and is a durn sight more boat than it seems. The down side
is the plans are not free but you got a lot of question answering from
George.

2. Sam Devlin has a couple of small sail boats that are stitch and glue
design. His boats finish nicely and the boats that I have seen at the
Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend are good sailors. Sam also has a book
that is helpful in the building.

3. on the Goodchild site is a little boat called a mini MORC racer from the
late 50's. I love this little boat and it is made for ocean racing so it
can take quite a lot. It is of course a lot more to build but should be
within the ability of a first timer if you take your time on it.

Of course if you look around you can find a reasonable number of small to
medium size day sailors that are for sale and the cost is likely less than
you would pay for building one of these.

Brian