Lyle Decker, Craig Decker's father, said Monday afternoon that there has been a tremendous outpouring of messages on Web sites and e-mail from people whose lives Decker touched. And they had a message for them.

"We would like all of his friends to know that we are OK, that we as his family have come to have a genuine sense of personal peace, and we want you to be OK and have that peace, too," Lyle Decker said. "He would want that. He would not want you to be hurt."

Decker, 25, disappeared Saturday while sailing on Utah Lake with his parents. Decker dove off their catamaran Saturday evening to retrieve an oar and never resurfaced. Searchers have since found the oar and Decker's shoes, but nothing else.

Lyle Decker said the initial moments of looking for his son were frantic, but he said when they realized Decker was gone, he and his wife felt a sense of peace and the impression that it was time to move on. He attributed that comfort to his faith in God.

"It has not been a roller coaster. It has been a smooth ride," Lyle Decker said.

He said the e-mail messages testify to how many lives Decker touched, and the high regard people held him in. Decker was a counselor in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Especially for Youth program and hoped to become a chiropractor, his family said earlier.

Meanwhile, recovery crews scaled back the operation, but not the determination to find Decker. Utah County sheriff's Sgt. Spencer Cannon said crews from the state Department of Public Safety, Utah County and Wasatch County Sheriff's Office were using sonar to scan the lake bed for Decker's body. Divers have gone in to investigate possible targets found by sonar.

"We have not found any items connected to Craig or the boat that he was on," Cannon said Monday afternoon.

Lyle and Marie Decker were taken out on one of the search boats Monday afternoon.

Cannon said there were four boats and 27 people, compared with 60 people working on the lake during the weekend. He said a helicopter, flown by a volunteer member of the sheriff's search-and-rescue team, has flown over the lake looking for Decker.

dmeyers@sltrib.com