Locals and visitors from near and far will battle it out for the title of best billy boiler during AgQuip.
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On Tuesday, hundreds will gather outside The Railway Hotel on Tempest Street to watch men and women alike vie for prize money and prestige in the 39th Roy Jaeger and Tony Bowles Memorial Billy Boiling Championship of NSW.
Each competitor is given a box of matches, tomahawk, block of pine, billy with 600ml of water in it and piece of cardboard to fan the flames.
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They will be timed and the winner of each heat is the one who can bring their billy to a roiling boil the fastest.
If they spill water or knock their billy over, they're out of the running.
Competitors can sign up from 5.30pm and the best time from each heat in the male and female competitions will earn competitors a place in the final.
There is also a prize for the fastest time of the night.
Organisers Sid and Vanessa Knight are encouraging locals to come along and cheer on the competitors - "the more, the merrier".
"We get a huge amount of people from Kempsey and all over ... We have a guy who comes every year from Lithgow and locals, of course, who want to win the title," Mr Knight said.
The Wicks family gets involved every year and three-time billy boiling champion Daniel Wicks will put on a demonstration before the heats start. His mother Narelle won the women's competition last year.
History
Steve Wicks said it was "great to be part of an iconic tradition", which started from a bet in 1979 over "who could boil a billy the quickest".
Kenny Lloyd had been at a pony club meeting in Quipolly where the kids had been learning billy boiling.
When he visited his local watering hole - the Railway - he raised the idea of a competition with fellow regulars including Roy Jaeger, Snow Weston, Lenny Cook, Kenny Lloyd, "Barramundi" Bob Margach and Max Kotzur.
After a bit of a practice, they held a competition on the Sunday, and Mr Kotzur beat out Mr Weston for first place.
Mr Weston was victorious in the next two years but was knocked from his pedestal in 1982 by "dark horse" Graham Waters, from Narrabri, who boiled his billy in five minutes and 30 seconds.
To this day, the record is still held by Doug Pegg who, in 1995, boiled a billy in five minutes and 13 seconds.
Mr Jaeger and Tony Bowles kept the tradition going and the name of the competition still bears their names to this day.
