Connection Timeouts in load testing

Hi,

I'm load testing Tomcat 5.0.18 on SuSE 9 (k:2.4.xxx), and I have no
connection timeout set in Tomcat, but at points I suddenly get 20-50
users (client side) failing saying connection timed out on the socket.

java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out: connect
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.socketConnect(Native Method)
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.doConnect(Unknown Source)
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.connectToAddress(Unknown Source)
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.connect(Unknown Source)
at java.net.Socket.connect(Unknown Source)

Using netstat -a, I see loads of tcp connection in a "TIME_WAIT"
state. Accoring to man, this socket is "waiting after close to handle
packets still in the network", so does this mean I have some
limitation in the linux kernel or tomcat ?

Thanks,
Pete.