Need raycast to target child, not parent.

Hello Everyone, I have a melee weapon script that uses a raycast to send damage to a target. The problem I am having though, is it keeps targeting the parent of the object. The parent is a empty game object with no colliders, but it still targets it, instead of the actual target. (its a ship, with different components that can be attacked). I've tried using layermasks, but it doesn't seem to work. It still targets the empty game object. Would someone please take a look at my script and let me know what I am doing wrong? thank you!

 #pragma strict
 
 var TheDamage : int = 50;
 var Distance : float;
 var MaxDistance : float = 3.0;
 var TheAnimator : Animator;
 var DamageDelay : float = 0.6;
 var knifeHit: AudioClip;
 var knifeSwing1: AudioClip;
 var knifeSwing2: AudioClip;
 var knifeHitDetect :LayerMask = 14;
 
 private var knifeCanAttack :boolean = true;
 private var Swing01Streak = 0;
 private var Swing02Streak = 0;
 
 var disableAttackknife : disableAttacks;
 
 
 
 
 function Update () 
 {
  TheAnimator.SetBool ("speargun", false);
     if (Input.GetButtonDown("Fire1") && disableAttackknife.CanAttack == true && (knifeCanAttack == true))
     {
         AttackDamage ();
         disableAttackknife.CanAttack = false;
         
     }
 }
 function AttackDamage ()
 {
     knifeCanAttack = false;
     if (Random.value >= 0.5 && Swing01Streak <= 2)
     {
         TheAnimator.SetBool ("firing",true);
         
         Swing01Streak += 1; 
         Swing02Streak = 0;
         yield WaitForSeconds (0.5);
         audio.PlayOneShot(knifeSwing1);
     }
     
     else 
     {
         if (Swing02Streak <= 2)
         
         {
             TheAnimator.SetBool ("firing", true);
             Swing01Streak = 0;
             Swing02Streak += 1;
             yield WaitForSeconds (0.5);
         audio.PlayOneShot(knifeSwing2);
         }
             else 
             {
                 TheAnimator.SetBool ("firing", true);
                 Swing01Streak += 1;
                 Swing02Streak = 0; 
                     yield WaitForSeconds (0.5);
         audio.PlayOneShot(knifeSwing1);
                 
             }
     }
     
     yield WaitForSeconds (DamageDelay);
     //Actual attacking
     var hit : RaycastHit;
     var ray = Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay (Vector3(Screen.width/2,Screen.height/2,0));
     if (Physics.Raycast (ray, hit,100,knifeHitDetect.value))
     {
     Debug.Log(hit.transform);
         Distance = hit.distance;
         if (Distance < MaxDistance)
         {
             Debug.Log(hit.transform);
             hit.transform.SendMessage ("ApplyDamage", TheDamage, SendMessageOptions.DontRequireReceiver);
             audio.PlayOneShot(knifeHit);
         }
     }
         TheAnimator.SetBool("firing",false);
         TheAnimator.SetBool("firing",false);
         knifeCanAttack = true;
         disableAttackknife.CanAttack = true;
 }