Converting Melee Raycast from Java to C# Problems

I had a script written in Javascript for a melee attack system that I want to convert to C# but now I have these errors. Help!

Error CS1620: Argument '3' must be passed with the 'out' keyword (CS1620) (Assembly-CSharp)

Error CS1502: The best overloaded method match for 'UnityEngine.Physics.Raycast(UnityEngine.Vector3, UnityEngine.Vector3, out UnityEngine.RaycastHit)' has some invalid arguments (CS1502) (Assembly-CSharp)

 using UnityEngine;
 using System.Collections;
 
 public class MeleeSystem : MonoBehaviour {
 
     int Damage = 50;
     float Distance;
     float MaxDistance = 2;
     Transform TheSystem;
     
     void  Update (){
         if (Input.GetButtonDown("Fire1")) 
         {
             TheSystem.animation.Play("melee_attack");
             RaycastHit hit;
             if(Physics.Raycast (transform.position, transform.TransformDirection(Vector3.forward), hit))
             {
                 Distance = hit.distance;
                 if (Distance < MaxDistance)
                     hit.transform.SendMessage("ApplyDamage", Damage, SendMessageOptions.DontRequireReceiver); 
                 
             }
             
         }
         
     }
     
 }