ekipi

No seam at all: this is one root. Ekipi opens with the two letters of the Esperanto prefix ek-, which marks the sudden start of an action - ekiri, to set off; ekdormi, to fall asleep; ekkrii, to cry out. So the eye offers you ek- plus a verb ipi. There is no verb ipi. Ekip- is a single indivisible root borrowed from French, and the resemblance is an accident, exactly as it is in ekologio two ranks below. The test is always the same and it always works: strip the supposed affix and check that what remains is a root you actually know.

What it means in practice. To ekipi is to give something everything it needs in order to do its job: a ship for a voyage, an army for a campaign, a kitchen, a laboratory, a climber. It is transitive and it takes the thing being fitted out as its object, with per for the kit - oni ekipis la ekspedicion per novaj tendoj. Ekipaĵo is the equipment itself, the concrete stuff, on -aĵ-; ekipo is the act. The commonest form in the wild is the participle ekipita, well or badly equipped, and it is worth learning as a unit.

Against provizi. Provizi at 971 is to supply, and it is about consumables and continuing supply: food, water, money, fuel. Ekipi is about durable kit, the things that are still there afterwards. You provizas a town with bread and you ekipas a hospital with beds. Prepari at 751 is the wider word for getting ready by any means at all, and it is what you say when you do not want to commit to either.