23 October 2017 The improvisational startup French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss introduced the concept of bricolage into the social sciences, noting that most useful innovations in pre-industrial cultures emerged from repetitive adjustments and transformations of familiar, readily available materials. In recent years, other academics have explored whether bricolage, loosely translated as tinkering, can explain how craftsmen, entrepreneurs, and other decision-makers operating in resource-constrained environments assemble creative solutions. Firms using bricolage exhibit three specific traits: a bias towards action that refuses to wait for resources to reach a desired level; a readiness to use whatever relationships, know-how and resources are on hand; and an inventive and even playful approach to recombining existing assets and resources in novel ways to advance the venture’s mission. Amiel Kornel After 35 days at sea, then 38-year-old Isabelle Autissier won the first leg of the round-the-world solo ocean race on October 23rd, 1994, sailing into Cape Town, the first of three planned stops on the 27,000-mile BOC Challenge, with a commanding lead — 5 days, 8 hours and 52 minutes ahead of the second-place boat. Over the three years prior to the race, the former marine science professor had worked closely with naval architects and shipwrights in her hometown of La Rochelle to design, build and condition the boat. “We prepared it en finesse, systematically addressing the most minute details so that the boat would be a tool made exactly for me,” Autissier told me recently. Ecureuil Poitou Charentes 2 became the first open ocean sailboat to use a hydraulically controlled pivoting keel to improve racing performance. All monohull boats competing in open ocean races have now adopted the innovation, previously seen only on smaller boats. The entire team worked for months to handcraft the lightest, fastest and sturdiest 60-foot sailboat ever made. No detail was too small to receive their attention. On the next leg of the race, as Autissier sailed into the Indian Ocean heading for Sydney, Australia, she faced “manageable” 35-knot winds. For a week, everything seemed under control, with the auto- pilot maintaining a steady course through the so-called Roaring 40’s. But suddenly in the afternoon of December 2nd, Autissier heard a percussive pop that sounded like a gunshot. Rushing up on deck, she found the 26-meter mast had snapped a few feet above its base. A small metal sleeve tethering one of the shrouds — cables supporting the mast — to the deck had broken. A manufacturing fault in a tiny component had subverted the team’s innovative engineering and painstaking preparation, and the skipper’s superb navigational skill.