We present an algorithm for the solution of the incompressible Navier- Stokes equations combined with local refinement of the mesh based on an error estimation. Our solution strategy is based on well-established CFD techniques and has been designed to be efficient and scalable in a parallel environment. This has proved to be specially challenging for the mesh refinement, for which we propose an algorithm designed to use as little non-local information as possible. We complement the discussion with a numerical example.